MELVIN CALVIN

Melvin Calvin (1911 in Minneapolis, Minnesota – 1997 in Berkeley, California) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1961 "for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants". He studied at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology (B.S. degree in 1931) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D. in 1935). Then he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Manchester, England. From 1937, he was at the University of California at Berkeley, rising to full professor in 1947. He became director of the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics at Berkeley in 1960, which was renamed Melvin Calvin Laboratory upon his retirement in 1980. Calvin remained active in research after his retirement. He received many awards and honors. Clarence and Jane Larson recorded Melvin Calvin's narrative in Dr. Calvin's office at the University of California, Berkeley, on July 16, 1984, and what follows are edited excerpts from that recording.