With great sad­ness, we report that Pro­fes­sor D. Wayne Good­man died on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 27, 2012 at the age of 66, after a lengthy and dif­fi­cult bat­tle with can­cer. His con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of catal­y­sis and to the peo­ple who worked in this field were many in num­ber and very deep in impact.

Wayne received his Ph.D. in Phys­i­cal Chem­istry in 1975 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin, under the super­vi­sion of M.J.S. Dewar, where his research includ­ed some of the ear­li­est mea­sure­ments and full analy­sis of the pho­to­elec­tron spec­tra of inor­gan­ic mol­e­cules. After com­plet­ing his Ph.D., Wayne won a NATO fel­low­ship, and then became an NRC Research Fel­low at the Nation­al Bureau of Stan­dards near Wash­ing­ton, DC. At the “Bureau” (now NIST), he worked under the super­vi­sion of two pio­neers in the field of sur­face sci­ence, Ted Madey and John Yates. Among sev­er­al impor­tant accom­plish­ments dur­ing his tenure there, Wayne pro­duced land­mark pub­li­ca­tions on the met­al-cat­alyzed CO metha­na­tion reac­tion. Using well-defined sin­gle crys­tal mod­el cat­a­lysts of Ni and Ru and a nov­el, UHV-attached ‘high’ pres­sure cat­alyt­ic reac­tor, his work pro­vid­ed con­clu­sive evi­dence that CO metha­na­tion is a struc­ture insen­si­tive reac­tion.

Wayne’s sci­en­tif­ic career took off in the 1980s; these were high­ly pro­duc­tive years that estab­lished him as a lead­ing fig­ure in sur­face sci­ence and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. At San­dia Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ries in Albu­querque, NM, he iden­ti­fied “long-range” effects of some sur­face mod­i­fiers giv­ing new per­spec­tives on phe­nom­e­na asso­ci­at­ed with poi­son­ing and pro­mo­tion of cat­alyt­ic reac­tions. Wayne also ini­ti­at­ed research efforts focused on the hydrogenol­y­sis of alka­nes, cyclo­hexa­ne dehy­dro­gena­tion, methanol syn­the­sis, CO oxi­da­tion, and NO reduc­tion. His fun­da­men­tal stud­ies con­tin­ued to explore links between sur­face struc­ture and sur­face reac­tiv­i­ty, help­ing to estab­lish an approach fol­lowed by many research groups in sub­se­quent years.

Wayne took a fac­ul­ty posi­tion in the Depart­ment of Chem­istry at Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty in 1988, where he remained, hold­ing the Robert A. Welch Foun­da­tion Chair at the time of his death. The aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment of Texas A&M added a new dimen­sion to Wayne’s life. It was a joy for him to teach gen­er­al chem­istry to under­grad­u­ates, and Prof. Goodman’s lec­tures became very pop­u­lar among the stu­dents. With­in a few short years, Wayne was also able to estab­lish one of the best lab­o­ra­to­ries for sur­face sci­ence in the Unit­ed States. In the ear­ly 1990s, fol­low­ing work he ini­ti­at­ed at San­dia, his group at A&M per­formed sys­tem­at­ic stud­ies of the phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal prop­er­ties of bimetal­lic sur­faces and strained met­al over­lay­ers. Clear cor­re­la­tions were found between the elec­tron­ic per­tur­ba­tions induced by bimetal­lic bond­ing and vari­a­tions in the chem­i­cal and cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty of the met­als. After mak­ing many impact­ful dis­cov­er­ies in this area, Wayne shift­ed his atten­tion to the chem­istry of oxide sur­faces and the inter­ac­tion of well-defined met­al nanopar­ti­cles with oxide sup­ports, where he elu­ci­dat­ed key aspects of par­ti­cle size effects in catal­y­sis. His group devel­oped mod­els of metal/oxide inter­faces that have become valu­able tools for imag­ing and imag­in­ing the struc­ture of sup­port­ed het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts. In the late 1990s, his stud­ies of catal­y­sis by sup­port­ed Au nanopar­ti­cles received wide recog­ni­tion, with many papers, cita­tions and invit­ed lec­tures all over the world. He also led ele­gant kinet­ic and spec­tro­scop­ic stud­ies of vinyl acetate syn­the­sis over met­al alloys, unrav­el­ing key phe­nom­e­na for the prepa­ra­tion of oxy­genates.

Wayne pub­lished over 500 papers in sur­face sci­ence and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, with near­ly 24,000 cita­tions and an h‑index of 76. His work in these areas over the last 30 years has helped to trans­form catal­y­sis from a pri­mar­i­ly appli­ca­tions-ori­ent­ed dis­ci­pline to a high­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed sci­en­tif­ic enter­prise. For these sci­en­tif­ic accom­plish­ments, Wayne received numer­ous awards and hon­ors. From the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, he received the Ipati­eff Prize in catal­y­sis (1983), the Kendall Award in Col­loid and Sur­face Chem­istry (1993), the Arthur W. Adam­son Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in Advance­ment of Sur­face Chem­istry (2002), and the Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis (2005). Wayne was a Robert Bur­well Lec­tur­er for the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (1997), and has been elect­ed as a fel­low of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, the Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry, the Insti­tute of Physics, and the Amer­i­can Vac­u­um Soci­ety. He served as an Asso­ciate Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis, and as a mem­ber of the Edi­to­r­i­al Boards of Sur­face Sci­ence, Applied Sur­face Sci­ence, Lang­muir, Catal­y­sis Let­ters, Jour­nal of Mol­e­c­u­lar Catal­y­sis A, Chem­i­cal Physics Let­ters and the Jour­nal of Physics: Con­densed Mat­ter. He also men­tored a large num­ber of grad­u­ate stu­dents and post­docs.

Wayne is sur­vived by his love­ly and gra­cious wife of 44 years, Sandy, of Col­lege Sta­tion, TX; his son, Jac Good­man, son-in-law, Steven Teil­er, grand­son Eitan Teil­er Good­man of Wash­ing­ton, D.C.; his father, Grady Good­man; a broth­er, Garon Good­man; and a sis­ter, Mar­ca­lyn Price.

On a per­son­al note, we both attest to Wayne’s infec­tious enthu­si­asm for sci­ence and life, his nat­ur­al ten­den­cy to forge deep friend­ships with almost every­one he knew, his incred­i­ble sense of humor, and his deep com­mit­ment to his fam­i­ly, friends and insti­tu­tions. His suc­cess­ful efforts to reveal some of “Moth­er Nature’s” close­ly guard­ed secrets were an inspi­ra­tion to all who knew him. As impor­tant­ly, Wayne was a friend to all, who could always be count­ed on to enter­tain, enlight­en, sup­port, and debate. Along with anoth­er friend and col­league, Prof. Charles Mims (Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to), we were hon­ored to ded­i­cate our recent joint pub­li­ca­tion to Wayne in a spe­cial issue of the Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry C (Vol. 114, No. 40, 2010) pub­lished in hon­or of his 65^th birth­day. Our acknowl­edg­ment to Wayne in our paper was as fol­lows: “We thank Wayne Good­man for his sci­en­tif­ic inspi­ra­tion, men­tor­ing, and col­lab­o­ra­tion, and for untold num­ber of good times that defy descrip­tion.” We will great­ly miss our friend and men­tor. We know this same sen­ti­ment will be shared by a large frac­tion of the mem­ber­ship of the NACS.

Wayne, thank you for all you did for us, old bud­dy!

Char­lie Camp­bell (Depart­ment of Chem­istry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton)
Chuck Peden (Insti­tute for Inte­grat­ed Catal­y­sis, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ries)

Memo­r­i­al con­tri­bu­tions may be made to Hos­pice Bra­zos Val­ley at www.hospicebrazosvalley.org. Cards, let­ters and oth­er writ­ten forms of con­do­lences also may be addressed to the Good­man Fam­i­ly in care of the Depart­ment of Chem­istry, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty, Col­lege Sta­tion, Texas 77843–3255.
 
Note: Some of the above mate­r­i­al was adapt­ed from the Pref­ace to the spe­cial issue of the Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry C (Vol. 114, No. 40, 2010) pub­lished in hon­or of Wayne Goodman’s 65^th birth­day. The Pref­ace was authored by Michael Hen­der­son, Chuck Peden, Jose Rodriguez, Janos Szanyi, John Yates, and Fran­cis­co Zaera.