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Herbert Leopold Strauss
In Memoriam

Herbert Leopold Strauss

Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus

UC Berkeley
1936-2014

Herbert (“Herb”) Strauss was an internationally recognized spectroscopist who studied the rotational and vibrational properties of molecules to understand their molecular motion and conformation. In particular, he was a leader in the use of vibrational spectroscopy and infrared hole-burning to understand lipid alkane systems and ammonium salt and amine environments. In later years, he was also an active leader in undergraduate mentoring and instruction as the College of Chemistry undergraduate dean. Although he officially retired in 2003, he remained active on campus as a Professor of the Graduate School. He taught his last class, a graduate seminar, just three weeks before his death. Herb died at home in Berkeley on December 2, 2014 after a long illness. He was 78.

Herb Strauss was born on March 26, 1936 in Aachen, Germany, to Joan and Charles Strauss. With the help of relatives in England, the family, including Strauss’s younger brother Walter, escaped Nazi Germany in 1939. After a harrowing year in London, during which Strauss almost died from bronchitis, the family was able to immigrate to the United States.      

The Strauss family lived in a small apartment in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. Strauss’s father worked as a real estate agent, and his mother as a saleswoman in a clothing store. Although not wealthy, the family was a loving and supportive one that placed great emphasis on education.

Herb studied chemistry as an undergraduate (A.B. '57) and then as a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City. In 1957, he met his future wife, Carolyn North Cooper, on a blind date at the Christmas Eve midnight mass of a Manhattan church. Both Herb and Carolyn were Jewish, so meeting at a church was an irony that they both enjoyed. They were married about the time Strauss finished his Ph. D. in 1960; working under George Frankel, he submitted a thesis on “Studies of paramagnetic resonance spectra of some negative ions in solution.”  The newlyweds spent a happy year in Oxford as Herb carried out postdoctoral studies with Charles A. Coulson.

Herb Strauss joined the Berkeley chemistry faculty in 1961, where he spent his entire professional career developing and using vibrational and related spectroscopies to reveal the details of molecular motion and conformation. Using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, he explored properties of a variety of molecules, especially n-alkanes with lengths of 5 to 40 carbon atoms. He also used Raman and neutron scattering spectroscopy to study the rotations and vibrations of molecular hydrogen embedded in various systems, including ice and zeolites. Over the years, he held visiting appointments at the Indian Institute of Technology (1968-1969), at Fudan University in Shanghai (1982), at the University of Tokyo (1982), and at the University of Paris (1986). He was an editor of Annual Reviews of Physical Chemistry from 1985 to 2000.

Starting in 1980, Herb performed extensive pioneering studies of alkane and lipid structure, conformation, and phase changes, working closely with Robert G. Snyder, himself a pioneer in the development of vibrational normal mode analysis methods. They continued to work together for the rest of their careers, publishing over 50 joint papers on vibrational studies of alkanes and lipids. Alkane-chain systems, from alkanes themselves to lipid bilayers, show numerous phase changes with temperature variation. The phase changes are accompanied by conformational changes, which can be determined by infrared and Raman spectroscopies. Systems of mixed chain length segregate, and this too shows up in the spectra. The rate of segregation varies with chain length differences and with temperature. Strauss and Snyder found that even phosphatidylcholines segregate into micro regions of different composition. In addition, he used hole-burning spectroscopy to reveal the kinetics of the interior motions of the CH2 groups at different locations along the acyl chains.

Herb also performed very extensive spectral hole-burning experiments on the N-D stretching band of substituted ammonium ions (e.g. NH3D+) to study its structure and environmental dynamics. Intense irradiation of the N-D stretching mode “burned out” its infrared absorption and rotated the ion into non-equilibrium positions.  After burning the spectral hole, the molecules relax to their original positions, often by tunneling, and this process can be followed by monitoring the infrared spectrum. The Strauss group used the changing spectra to assign vibrational bands and determine the kinetics. Simple ammonium salts show discrete vibrational bands, while disordered salts exhibit broad vibrational bands. Hole-burning results in narrow holes that can be used to resolve the spectrum in the disordered sulfates and in the even more disordered amorphous polymers. The N-D bands of amino acid salts similarly doped with deuterium were also studied extensively. Hole-burning was used to determine the environment of the amine group in both the amino acids and in small polypeptides.

In another area of study, Herb exploited the hydrogen molecule, H2, as a unique probe of intermolecular interactions. He used Raman and neutron spectroscopies to show that hydrogen rotates and translates remarkably unhindered in both water and ice, but that hydrogen is considerably hindered in the channels of zeolites. The spectra were interpreted in terms of time-dependent interactions between hydrogen and the water molecules.

In recognition of his pioneering work on vibrational spectroscopy and molecular conformation and dynamics, Herb was awarded the Bomem-Michelson Prize for Spectroscopy in 1994. He also received the Lippincott Award for Vibrational Spectroscopy the same year for three decades of elucidating the complex dynamics of large molecules in condensed phases.

Strauss made exceptional contributions to the College of Chemistry in other ways as well. He served as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Affairs from 1995 through 2008. During this period, he was instrumental in increasing minority participation in the sciences, was very active in improving gateway courses in chemistry, mathematics, and physics, and served as the campus coordinator for the Chevron Undergraduate Research Program for minority students. His personal presence, due to both his imposing height and impressive beard, instilled respect and perhaps a tinge of fear in many undergraduates but his demeanor was always one of understanding and support. His refrain when confronted with a surprising situation was always “Jeepers!”

Strauss served on many campus and university committees and received the Berkeley Citation in 2003 for his distinguished and extraordinary service to the University, as well as the Academic Senate’s Berkeley Faculty Service Award (BFSA) in 2008. The BFSA recognized over two decades of Senate service. Strauss served not only as a member but as chair of a number of major Senate committees, including the Committee on Courses, Committee on Committees, and systemwide UC Committee on Committees. His service also included lengthy stints on the Graduate Council, the Committee on Academic Planning and Resource Allocation, and the Divisional Council, as well as over 10 years representing Berkeley in the systemwide Senate Assembly. In his nomination letter for Strauss’s Berkeley Citation, then College of Chemistry Dean Clayton Heathcock wrote, “In the more than four decades that Strauss has spent here at Berkeley, he has shown an outstanding dedication not only to his research and the scientific community in general, but also to ensuring that each member of the student body receives the most rewarding and fulfilling education that they possibly can. It is with the greatest respect that I submit this nomination letter on his behalf.”

Herb and Carolyn lived in Berkeley for most of their 58 years together, where they raised their three children, Michael, Rebecca, and Ethan. Their home was just a short bicycle ride from the campus, and Herb could be seen pedaling along Telegraph Avenue every morning and evening. He was an avid cyclist, often riding 100-mile routes on weekends. He was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather.

Herb is survived by his wife, Carolyn North; his brother and sister-in-law, Walter and Phyllis Strauss of Newton, MA; his children and their spouses, Michael and Sofia Strauss of Princeton, NJ, Rebecca Strauss and Susan Wilson of Waltham, MA, and Ethan and Anne Strauss of Madison, WI; and four grandchildren, Alexandro, Camilla, Robert, and Elizabeth Strauss.

Richard A. Mathies
2020