Sockless Buzz Adams finally gets his award

Two years after the death of a nationally renowned and beloved KU distinguished professor of chemistry, his former students and colleagues are finding ways to keep his memory alive.

The inaugural Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry will be presented this month during the Pittsburgh  Conference, a national analytical sciences and instrumentation conference in Florida. Former students, family, colleagues and friends of the late professor are  endowing the annual international award, which will include a plaque, a $2,500 honorarium and a symposium.A group of alumni and friends previously established funding at the KU Endowment Association for the Ralph N. Adams Professorship in the department of chemistry.

“Adams was the father of bioanalytical chemistry and was one of the faculty members who brought fame to the chemistry department ,” said Craig Lunte, chair of chemistry at KU. “He was one of our most important  chemistry faculty. He also was quite beloved.”

Adams, known by the nickname “Buzz” after his days as a bomber pilot in World War II, received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from  Rutgers  University in 1950 and a doctoral degree from Princeton University in 1953. He was a member of the faculty at Princeton until 1955, when he came to KU.

During his early years at KU, Adams' research focused on organic electrochemistry.  In 1969 Adams shifted his attention to neuroscience, and from 1972 to 1975 he was an interdisciplinary scholar with the Menninger Foundation in Topeka. Since the 1970s, Adams' research had focused on electroanalytical methods applied to tracking neurotransmitters, like dopamine, and neurochemical studies of schizophrenia.

To his students and colleagues, Adams was known for his straightforwardness and informality. Former student Ted Kuwana, emeritus professor of chemistry at KU, said those characteristics translated to Adams' behavior and dress.

“Most of the time he never wore socks,” Kuwana said. “If he'd had his druthers, he probably wouldn't have worn shoes—a hangover from his days of growing up on the New Jersey beaches. That was his casual  nature.

“There was no barrier to students in their access to him. He was one of the most unassuming and unpretentious individuals I have ever known.”

Nationally renowned and recognized for his work, Adams was among the first scientists to receive a Higuchi/Endowment Research Achievement Award, established in 1981 by the late Takeru Higuchi, KU distinguished professor of chemistry and pharmacy and chair of pharmaceutical chemistry, and his wife, Aya. Adams was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1997.

Adams retired from KU in 1992 as professor emeritus of chemistry. He died Nov. 28, 2002, after a short illness. He was 78.