Lauri Vaska

Lauri Vaska (May 7, 1925 – November 15, 2015) was an Estonian-American chemist who has made noteworthy contributions to organometallic chemistry.

He emigrated to the United States in 1952 and pursued his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at the University of Texas (1952–1956).

During that time, the Mellon Institute housed a number of future chemists, including Paul Lauterbur and R. Bruce King.

He discovered the main reactions of oxidative addition, a process that is central to homogeneous catalysis in organometallic chemistry.

Among his awards are the Boris Pregel Award for Research in Chemical Physics (New York Academy of Sciences) in 1971[5][6] and election in 1981 as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "pioneering work in transition metal organometallic chemistry and synthetic oxygen carriers".