Former head of chemistry department dies

Tarbell helped shape department over 30-year tenure

A former chair of the College's Department of Chemistry, Dean Stanley Tarbell, 86, died in May at his home in Bolingbrook, Ill.

Tarbell's career coincided with the "instrumental revolution," a time when new scientific instruments, such as the infrared spectrometer, changed the laboratory and the nature of research. The sophisticated equipment sped up experiments and extended the scope of science. As a result, Tarbell saw the University's chemistry department mature dramatically during his nearly 30-year tenure.

He joined the University in 1938 as an organic chemist after graduating from Harvard University and completing a year of postdoctoral work at the University of Illinois. During World War II, he conducted research on the detection of chemical warfare agents and the synthesis of anti-malarial drugs for the National Defense Research Committee and the Committee on Medical Research. After the war, he helped design a new research laboratory to accommodate the influx of veterans attending school, and ran the chemistry department's graduate research program.

A planning committee he chaired in 1963 guided the department into the future with recommendations for recruiting faculty and increasing the numbers of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Tarbell, who served as department chair from 1964 to 1966, championed the inclusion of new fields of research, such as inorganic and biophysical chemistry, and helped the department earn an international reputation for excellence. In 1967, he left the University to accept a position as distinguished professor at Vanderbilt University, from which he retired in 1981 as professor emeritus.

"Stan put organic chemistry on the right track," said Jack Kampmeier, professor of chemistry, who knew Tarbell well as a friend and a colleague. "He was an outstanding leader with an encyclopedic knowledge of organic chemistry and a contagious enthusiasm for research. Stan's personality and vision played an essential role in shaping the modern chemistry department at Rochester."

Tarbell is survived by sons William Tarbell of Bolingbrook, Ill., and Ted Tarbell of Los Altos, Calif.; daughter Linda Neumann of Rehovot, Israel; sister Elva Procopio of Haines City, Fla.; and several grandchildren.