Abbreviated Biographical Sketch
Carl
Djerassi, emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University, is one of two
American chemists to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science (for
the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive--�the Pill�) and the
National Medal of Technology (for promoting new approaches to insect control).
A member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, the Royal Society (London) as well as the Leopoldina
and many other �foreign academies,
Djerassi has received 34 honorary doctorates together with numerous other
honors, such as the first Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the first Award for the
Industrial Application of Science from the National Academy of Sciences, the
Erasmus Medal of the Academia Europeae, the Perkin
Medal of the Society for Chemical Industry, the American Chemical Society�s
highest award, the Priestley Medal, the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and
Art, and the Great Merit Cross of Germany. An Austrian postage stamp with his
image was issued in 2005.
For
the past quarter century, he has turned to fiction writing, mostly in the genre
of �science-in-fiction,� whereby he illustrates, in the guise of realistic
fiction, the human side of scientists and the personal conflicts faced by
scientists in their quest for scientific knowledge, personal recognition, and
financial rewards. In addition to a poetry collection (A Diary of Pique), a short story collection ("How I beat Coca-Cola and other Tales of
One-upmanship"),5 novels (�Cantor�s Dilemma;� �The Bourbaki
Gambit;� �Marx, deceased;� �Menachem�s Seed;� �NO�),� autobiography (�The Pill, Pygmy Chimps,
and Degas� Horse�) and memoir (�This Man�s Pill: Reflections on the 50th
Birthday of the Pill�), �a collection
of biographical sketches (Four Jews on Parnassus�a Conversation:Benjamin, Adorno,
Scholem, and Sch�nberg), he has written 9
plays that have cumulatively been translated into 20 languages (AN
IMMACULATE MISCONCEPTION, OXYGEN, CALCULUS,EGO, PHALLACY, TABOOS, VERRECHNET
(in German),FOREPLAY,
and INSUFFICIENCY).
He
is also the founder of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program near
Djerassi
lives in