Virgil Boekelheide

Virgil Boekelheide (28 July 1919 – 24 September 2003[2]) was an American organic chemist and a professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Oregon.

[1] He then received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1943, where he worked under the supervision of C. Frederick Koelsch.

[1] Boekelheide was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1953[2] and was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, permitting him to spend time as a visiting scientist in Germany.

[6] Boekelheide began his research career studying alkaloid natural products, but later refocused his interests on aromaticity, particularly bridged compounds known as cyclophanes.

[3] He was the first to synthesize the sixfold-bridged cyclophane compound known as superphane, a molecule of interest due to its unique pi-stacking intramolecular interactions.