Dr. Bruce E. Bursten received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1978. After 2 years as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Texas A&M University, Dr. Bruce joined the faculty of The Ohio State University, where he rose to the rank of Distinguished University Professor. In 2005, he moved to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Bruce has been a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, and he is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. At Ohio State he has received the Arts and Sciences Student Council Outstanding Teaching Award in 1984, University Distinguished Teaching Award in 1982 and 1996,and the University Distinguished Scholar Award in 1990. Bursten received the Spiers Memorial Prize and Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2003, and the Morley Medal of the Cleveland Section of the American Chemical Society in 2005. Dr. Bruce was President of the American Chemical Society for 2008. In addition to his teaching and service activities, His research program focuses on compounds of the transition-metal and actinide elements.