PAUL HAAKE

PAUL HAAKE, Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Emeritus, died Dec. 3, 2011. He was 79. After receiving bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, he did postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and joined the faculty of UCLA in 1961. He came to Wesleyan in 1968 and during his 25 years as a full-time teacher and scholar at the university contributed to the development of the PhD program in Chemistry and the formation of the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry department. His doctoral research on hydrolysis and isotopic exchange resulted in the 1961 publication of the paper “Hydrolysis and Exchange in Esters of Phosphoric Acid,” a seminal paper in phosphorus chemistry. He taught a popular series of courses for non-science majors and also participated in community issues. In 1975 he was appointed to Connecticut’s Nuclear Power Evaluation Council, a commission concerned with the safety of nuclear power. In 2004, after a dozen years in which he divided his time between teaching at Wesleyan and various other pursuits, he fully retired from Wesleyan.