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Ray Freeman deactivated

06 Jan - 01 May

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Ray played a major part in the blossoming of NMR techniques and their chemical applications that followed the introduction of Fourier transform methods in 1972. His group in Oxford pioneered many new methods in 2D NMR, selective excitation and broadband decoupling, pulse sequence elements that are now part of every NMR spectroscopist’s toolkit and that are in daily use in every NMR laboratory as well as in the life sciences and medicine. Ray was a superb communicator, and was often the star turn at NMR conferences - his presentations were characteristically littered with wry jokes and self-deprecating remarks, and illustrated by beautiful hand-drawn slides and cartoons. He was a wonderful mentor to his students, who remember with great fondness his warmth, humour and creativity. Ray was a gentleman scientist, somewhat of the old school, and a devoted family man. He will be greatly missed, but warmly remembered by all who had the privilege of working with him.

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22-08 2022 22:35 View / Comment (0)

gary thompson

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The Reson8 group of NMR facilirties in the north of England use a logo based on Ray's 8 ball experiment, that I designed, as their logo. Before we used it we of course asked Ray for permission and received a very warm thoughtful and charming reply in the affirmative...

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02-07 2022 15:02 View / Comment (0)

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24-05 2022 04:59 View / Comment (0)

John Delayre

John Delayre

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I will always remember the title of his talk at one ENC: "No More Research with Fou-rire Transform"

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18-05 2022 23:32 View / Comment (0)

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09-05 2022 11:39 View / Comment (0)

Eriks Kupce

Eriks Kupce

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My Humboldt fellowship in Germany was running out and my host - Prof. B. Wrackmeyer suggested I write 10 - 20 letters to different NMR professors to find my next position, which I did. The only positive response came from the place that I least expected - Cambridge and it was from Ray Freeman. I was so incredibly lucky! I used the last two month of my Humboldt fellowship to travel to Cambridge. Most of his PhD students Lisa McIntyre, Ping and Xi-Li Wu were leaving within a week and did a quick intro to Varian VXR400 that Ray had in his lab. I was about to finish my first project on indirect detection of O-17 when Ray came to the lab and gave me a manuscript - "why don't you read this". I was so ashamed that I did not write it up in time. So, I rushed to write up my second project on binomial filters and gave it to Ray. I could hardly find any of my text when it came back from Ray next day, neatly printed and with perfect figures. At that point I realized that writing was out of my hands and the next 60 or so papers that we published with Ray were always masterfully written by Ray. My two month in his lab ended and in the meantime Ray organized for me a special Royal Society stipend for Baltic countries that just had broken free from the USSR. This lasted for about two years and towards the end of my time in Cambridge Howard Hill (Varian) was visiting the lab. Ray suggested I apply for a position at Varian, which I did. Indeed, I was invited to Palo Alto for an interview, but my first attempt was unsuccessful.... So, I ended up with Prof. Iain Campbell in Oxford. However, the bond with Ray was never broken and we continued our collaboration for the next 20 years. I sometimes felt a little guilty for taking so much of his time, but he seemed to enjoy our discussions and kept writing papers up to his 80th birthday. He often gave up his invitations to conferences in my favour and I am so much indebt to Ray for all these years of collaboration. He made research so interesting and so enjoyable. Always enthusiastic about new ideas and so inspiring, even when I felt it was not worth pursuing. He was such a master of turning boring into exciting. Not to mention brilliant acronyms that he invented for every new invention. And then came the Laukien Prize. He felt very embarrassed and did not want to accept it. He only accepted to make sure I would receive the honour, which I never would without Ray's help. He has done so much for me and many other of his students and post-docs. He has created so many stars and superstars in the NMR universe. Yet, he always remained so human, gentle, kind and modest, a true nobleman.

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09-05 2022 09:15 View / Comment (0)

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07-05 2022 17:19 View / Comment (0)

Gareth Morris

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My earliest memory of Ray was of an elderly (well, over 40) figure appearing at the back of the audience in physical chemistry lectures early in my undergraduate career at Oxford. At the time we thought he was some sort of government inspector, but it turned out that he was returning to Oxford to teach after some years in industry and re-familiarising himself with the curriculum. The next year he was my tutor in physical chemistry, and a superb teacher. I only realised later that the reason he had everything at his fingertips in that first year was that he had mugged up all the material the night before each tutorial. When the time came for me to choose a research group for my Part II research year, Ray was the natural choice. For me, as it was for many subsequent students, this was the best academic decision I ever made, and one that changed the course of my life. Ray was not at all the conventional image of a doctoral supervisor, a remote figure descending from time to time to tell students what to do and to criticise their results. He never dictated, and rarely even advised, but somehow discussions with him always led to new and fruitful approaches to problems. He had the gift, unique in my experience, of being able to draw the best out of everyone in the group. Many of our research ideas were generated by other group members; but none of those ideas would have emerged without Ray’s quiet prompting, often over coffee and tea breaks. Only in hindsight did I realise that he had made a conscious decision when starting his academic research to cede the practical side of the work almost entirely to his students, giving them immediate ownership of research work and building their confidence and self-reliance. He rarely even assigned research projects; new students were instead encouraged to learn how to operate the spectrometer, and then to develop their own project through discussions in the group. This often made for a challenging few weeks at the outset, but paid dividends in the longer term, Ray’s research students winning a string of prizes. Ray brought about profound changes in the ways that chemists use NMR spectroscopy. Techniques that he pioneered are in daily use in every serious chemical laboratory in the world, and he made a major contribution to the central role that NMR now plays in chemical and biological research. For those of us who had the good fortune to work with him, though, it is not the great scientist that we remember, but rather the man: warm, humane, generous, devoid of self-importance, full of life and dry humour. He enriched lives as well as science.

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07-05 2022 13:50 View / Comment (0)

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07-05 2022 00:37 View / Comment (0)

Ryan McKay

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I sent Professor Freeman an email years ago asking for advice on how to better teach particularly challenging topics in NMR, hoping that maybe if I was lucky he might reply. Not only did he reply, but did so the same day and corresponded with me at length over several days lending his experiences on how best to instruct. It was amazing he took the time to help me and I've always appreciated this thoughts, insights and willingness to help without hesitation. He was inspiring, brilliant, and still kind.

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