| AdminHistory | Kenneth Wade was born in Lincolnshire in 1932. He studied chemistry at the University of Nottingham, earning his BSc in 1954 and receiving his PhD in 1957 under the supervision of Norman Neill Greenwood. His postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge focused on borane hydride-based rocket fuels, funded by the Ministry of Defence, and in 1959 he went to the US to spend a year at Cornell University, New York. He spent most of his career in the chemistry department at Durham University until his retirement in 1997, though he remained active there for many years afterwards. He held several international visiting professorships during his career.
His scientific research was particularly focused on the chemistries of boron, aluminium, gallium and indium, and on the complex structures of polyhedral cluster compounds. He developed Wade's Rules for counting the number of valence electrons involved in the chemical bonding of these compounds, which are still widely taught today Through his career he was closely connected with the Royal Society of Chemistry and won a number of awards from them. |