Alfred Lawrence Wilds (1 March 1915 - 4 July 2002) was a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
[1] His doctoral research was done under the guidance of Professor Werner E. Bachmann at Michigan at a time (the mid-1930s) when modern organic chemistry and synthesis was just starting to emerge.
His thesis work is hailed even today as a major and revolutionary break with the past.
The Vitalism theory still distorted many people's views as to the relationship between "ordinary" chemicals and such esoterica as animal-isolated sex hormones.
So the "Bachmann, Cole and Wilds" paper is widely recognized as inaugurating the modern era of chemical synthesis of complex medicinally important structures.