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Crystallographers Online
An obituary of John Stezowski by Bill Duax
It is with great sadness that I report that John Stezowski died of a heart attack
on Friday, November 30, 2007. John was a fine crystallographer, a good person and a dear
friend.
I met John when he attended a Direct Methods meeting held in Buffalo, NY in 1971. He was a
champion of international crystallography and we attended many workshops together in Poland
and Hungary in the 1980’s where we both made great and lasting friendships. John’s
enthusiasm for science extended to leaping over the celebratory bonfire breaking his leg
at one very memorable meeting in Poland. John moved from the US to Stuttgart, Germany
where he taught crystallography, developed a program of analysis of the cyclodextrin
structures and mentored many fine students. With assistance from Judy Flippen-Anderson
and me he established the IUCr Commission of Small Molecules (now called Commission on
Chemical Crystallography). When the Chinese delegation’s bid to host the 1990 IUCr Congress
lost to the French bid in Hamburg, John approached the Chinese delegation led by Y.C. Tang
and proposed that we arrange a special IUCr symposium on small molecule crystallography
in Beijing in 1986. At John’s invitation Dorothy Hodgkin, Bill Lipscomb, Herb Hauptman
and Jack Dunitz agreed to present plenary lecturers at the conference, which was a great
success.
John returned to the US to establish a crystallographic program at the University of Nebraska
where he once again attracted and trained many excellent students. In Nebraska John
continued his elegant studies of the clodextrin complexes using crystallography,
spectroscopic techniques and molecular modeling to clarify the complex interactions of the
disordered host molecules in these challenging and commercially useful complexes.
Unfortunately there were few opportunities for our paths to cross in recent years and I
regret not having stayed in closer contact with him.
20th Dec. 2007 - Crystallographers Online - Copyright © International Union of Crystallography