Martin O’Donnell

The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology lost one of its founding members when Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus Martin O’Donnell passed away August 1, 2023. Marty came to IUPUI in 1975, at a time when only bachelors and non-thesis masters degrees were awarded, and research was carried out primarily with undergraduates. His first Ph.D. student, Bill Bennett, came from IU Bloomington and was the beginning (1982-1986) of IUPUI’s advancement to a Ph.D. granting department. His research has been funded through grants from the Research Corporation, ACS Petroleum Research Fund, NSF and NIH. Several postdocs were funded through collaborations with Lilly. One of Marty’s major accomplishments was pioneering work in the enantioselective synthesis of amino acids, research that was acknowledged by David MacMillan in his Nobel acceptance speech.

Marty had a special love for teaching and was rightfully proud of his impact on the many undergraduates, graduates, postdocs, and visiting scientists whose lives he directly influenced. He teamed up with Bill Scott, formerly from Eli Lilly in the world-wide implementation of IUPUI’s Distributed Drug Discovery (D3) program.