Richard Errett Smalley (June 6, 1943 – October 28, 2005) was an American chemist who was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy at Rice University.

[2] Richard Smalley credits his father, mother and aunt as formative influences in industry, science and chemistry.

[3] Smalley attended Hope College for two years before transferring to the University of Michigan where he received his Bachelor of Science in 1965, performing undergraduate research in the laboratory of Raoul Kopelman.

He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1973 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "The lower electronic states of 1,3,5 (sym)-triazine", under the supervision of Elliot R.

[5] He did postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 1976, with Donald Levy and Lennard Wharton where he was a pioneer in the development of supersonic beam laser spectroscopy.

[7] Smalley's research in physical chemistry investigated the formation of inorganic and semiconductor clusters using pulsed molecular beams and time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

As a consequence of this expertise, Robert Curl introduced him to Harry Kroto in order to investigate a question about the constituents of astronomical dust.

[11] The second article detailed the discovery of the endohedral fullerenes in "Lanthanum Complexes of Spheroidal Carbon Shells" in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (1985).

[13] Although only three people can be cited for a Nobel Prize, graduate students James R. Heath, Yuan Liu, and Sean C. O'Brien participated in the work.

He is well known for his group's invention of the high-pressure carbon monoxide (HiPco) method of producing large batches of high-quality nanotubes.

He also believed that Drexler's speculations about apocalyptic dangers of molecular assemblers threatened the public support for development of nanotechnology.

[28] Starting in the late 1990s, Smalley advocated for the need for cheap, clean energy, which he described as the number one problem facing humanity in the 21st century.

He described what he called "The Terawatt Challenge", the need to develop a new power source capable of increasing "our energy output by a minimum factor of two, the generally agreed-upon number, certainly by the middle of the century, but preferably well before that.

[33] Suffering from hair loss and weakness as a result of his chemotherapy treatments, Smalley testified before the congressional testimonies, arguing for the potential benefits of nanotechnology in the development of targeted cancer therapies.

"[39] Smalley, who had taken classes in religion as well as science at Hope College, rediscovered his religious foundation in later life, particularly during his final years while battling cancer.

"[40] At the Tuskegee University's 79th Annual Scholarship Convocation/Parents' Recognition Program he was quoted making the following statement regarding the subject of evolution while urging his audience to take seriously their role as the higher species on this planet.