The Puget Sound Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS) named their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Respect (DEIR) Scholarship in honor of Professor Emeritus John Macklin.
Prof. Macklin was recognized along with the first recipient of the John Macklin Scholarship, a student at Central Washington University, at the ACS Puget Sound Section’s annual awards banquet on September 30, 2024, at Renton Technical College.
Prof. Macklin joined the UW faculty in 1968 as the first African American professor in the Department of Chemistry. He specialized in using Raman spectroscopy to study complexes in water solutions. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Linfield College in 1962 and the Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1968 under the guidance of Robert A. Plane.
In the early 1980s, Macklin was a NASA-ASEE Summer Faculty Fellow at Stanford University and his collaboration with NASA scientists at the Ames Research Center continued over the years.
Later studies investigated the aggregation of photo-active cyanine dyes in solution and other dyes that are useful in photographic, photovoltaic and other photochemical and electrical applications.
At the UW, Professor Macklin was a member of the College Board’s Science Advisory Committee, Development Committee in Advanced Placement Chemistry, and Educational Equality Project.
He retired in 2005, but remains active in the chemistry community at the University of Washington as professor emeritus and in the Puget Sound Section of the ACS as a councilor.
Photos from the ACS Puget Sound Section’s annual awards banquet are posted with the October 3, 2024, announcement.