Frank Clifford Whitmore (October 1, 1887 – June 24, 1947), nicknamed "Rocky", was a prominent chemist who submitted significant evidence for the existence of carbocation mechanisms in organic chemistry.
At Penn State, Whitmore served as the Dean of the School of Chemistry and Physics from 1929–1947, succeeding his former Harvard colleague Gerald Wendt in the position.
Whitmore worked on the findings of others and generalized the concept of molecules with a positively charged carbon atom, a carbocation, as an intermediate step in the addition of a halogen element.
In 1945, Whitmore was awarded the Willard Gibbs Medal (considered to be the highest chemical honor in America) by the Chicago section of ACS.
[citation needed] Whitmore married Marion Gertrude Mason (who graduated from Radcliffe College with a degree in chemistry in 1912) in 1914.