The Wolff-Kishner Reduction and Related Reactions Discovery and Development

1. The Discoverers of the Reaction2. Discovery and Priority3. The First Two Decades: Mechanism and Early Use in Synthesis4. To the End of World War II: Expanding the Use of the Reaction5. After World War II6. The Modern Wolff-Kishner Reduction7. Use of the Reaction in Modern Synthesis

David E. Lewis was born and educated in South Australia. He received his B.Sc. (chemistry, 1972), Ph.D. (organic chemistry, 1980) and D.Sc. (chemistry, 2012) degrees from the University of Adelaide. In 1976, he moved to the U.S. as a Research Associate at the University of Arkansas. Following temporary faculty positions at Arkansas and Illinois, Lewis pursued his independent career at Baylor University (Assistant-Associate Professor; 1981-1988) and South Dakota State University (Associate-Full Professor; 1989-1977) before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1997 as Professor of Chemistry.
Lewis' research interests are in physical and synthetic organic chemistry, where his recent work has focused on the synthesis of useful molecules based on the 4-amino-1,8-naphthalimide chromophore. He also has an international reputation as an expert in the history of organic chemistry in Russia. He is the author of 100 papers and books, including several Essays in the history of chemistry for Angewandte Chemie, and is the holder of 18 U.S. Patents. Lewis is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and the Royal Society of Chemistry, and is a former Chair of the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (HIST). He was awarded the 2018 HIST Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry, and is one of three 2019 Markovnikov Medal Laureates. His collected works in the history of chemistry were translated into Russian in 2016.