AUSTIN, Texas — Allen Bard, an esteemed faculty member at the University of Texas and a prominent scientist known for his pioneering work in studying electrochemistry, has died at the age of 90.
Bard was a faculty member at the UT for nearly 65 years before. During that tenure, he received several prestigious awards including a 2013 National Medal of Science and the 2019 King Faisal International Prize in Science.
Bard was known for his work in the field of electrochemistry, a branch of chemistry that studies the relationship between light, electricity and chemicals. After earning his Ph. D. from Harvard, he began his career at UT and became involved in many different projects, including the development of the scanning electrochemical microscope- a tool that has been used to discover new materials for technologies like solar cells and batteries, to analyze the inner workings of biological cells and to show chemical activity at very high resolution. The scanning electrical microscope is still used by researchers to this day.
Bard published more than 1,000 academic papers, wrote and co-wrote three books and received more than 30 patents, according to the university. Advances in biological testing, chemistry research, physics and engineering can be traced back to Bard’s studies and research.
Bard’s contributions to the field of electrochemistry are said to be world-renowned. He developed electrogenerated chemiluminescence, a chemical reaction that produces light, which would lead to analytical tools that would become used for clinical diagnostics, biomedical research, DNA sensors, biodefense sensors, drug screening, food and water safety and environmental monitoring.
Among the awards Bard won include the Enrico Fermi Award, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the Olin-Palladium Award, the Priestley Medal and the Welch Award in Chemistry, as well as being a fellow of both the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.