Nef, John Ulric

Nef, John Ulric

(1862–1915) chemist; born in Herisau, Switzerland. Coming to the U.S.A. as a child in 1866, he did his graduate work in Germany. As a professor at Purdue (1887–89), Clark (1889–92), and the University of Chicago (1892–1915), he was a pioneer in the transfer of German university traditions in organic chemistry. His particular field was the study of bivalent carbon compounds such as quinone and the action of alkaline oxidizing agents on sugars.