Biographical Sketch

Cecil Dybowski

    Cecil Dybowski is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware.  His interests are in the application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance to the study of solids and solid-like materials.  He has published over 175 technical papers.  He is the coauthor of three books: Transient Techniques in NMR of Solids (Academic Press), NMR Spectroscopy Techniques (Dekker), and the recently published Essential Data and Equations for a Course in Physical Chemistry (Pearson).  He was an Associate Editor of Applied Spectroscopy for fourteen years and is currently an Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry.  He is a member of the editorial boards of several journals.

   He was a student of Professor Charles G. Wade at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1973 for studies of spin-lattice relaxation in thermotropic and cholesteric liquid crystals.    After completing the Ph.D., he was a Research Fellow in Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Professor Robert W. Vaughan on the application of NMR to solids and semisolids such as elastomers.

    In 1976, Dybowski joined the faculty of the University of Delaware.  Early work from his laboratory focused on using NMR, EPR and FTIR spectroscopy to investigate molecules at the surfaces of heterogeneous catalysts, leading to characterization of a variety of catalyst systems, including the nature of hydrogen on metals supported on oxide surfaces, the nature of oxide-supported organometallic cluster catalysts, and the characterization of partial-oxidation catalysts.  His studies of molecules absorbed in various zeolitic catalysts showed that molecules sorbed in these materials bind to counterions in a manner analogous to ion-molecule complexes in the gas phase.  Early on, his laboratory began extensive studies of the spectroscopy xenon gas in confined spaces.  Concurrently, Dybowski’s laboratory also focused on analyzing the deformation of polymer samples with NMR spectroscopy.  Their technique of using the moments of the NMR line shape to determine structural features has been quoted in textbooks on NMR and polymers.  Studies of conducting polymers with NMR spectroscopy provided clues to the nature of these systems.

   Recently, studies have focused on the NMR spectroscopy of solids containing heavy-metal spin ½ nuclei such as 207Pb, 199Hg, and 119Sn. The project involves both measurement and prediction of the chemical shielding in various solid structures using state-of-the-art relativistic density functional calculations.  Dybowski and his coworkers have identified a new mechanism of spin-lattice relaxation that applies to these heavy-metal nuclei.

   Dybowski’s previous awards include the 1984 Spectroscopist of the Year from the Delaware Valley Section of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, the 2008 Delaware Section Award of the American Chemical Society, as well as being named a Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemists.   He has been a distinguished visiting professor at several universities, including the University of Paris and the Jagiellonian University.