Chemistry Professor emeritus Paul "Dick" Shafer died Wednesday of cardiac arrest at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He was 71.
Shafer, an organic chemist who specialized in nuclear magnetic resonance, was a member of the Dartmouth faculty from 1952 to 1988. During his tenure at Dartmouth, he served as chair of the sciences division, chair of the chemistry department and associate dean of the sciences.
Shafer created the College's nuclear magnetic resonance laboratory, which is used for separating and recognizing chemical compounds. He also served on the science building committee during the contraction of the Sherman Fairchild Physical Sciences Center in the 1970s.
"Shafer had a warm, friendly and genuine interest in students," said Chemistry Professor emeritus Walter Stockmayer, who worked with Shafer at the College. "The chemistry faculty valued him greatly in helping create the modern instruments used in Burke Laboratory."
Beyond his academic work, Shafer was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed backpacking, rock climbing, sailing and skiing. While at Dartmouth, he taught rock climbing to Dartmouth students and served as an advisor to the student mountaineering club.
"For scores of Dartmouth students, their memories of Dartmouth are inseparable from their memories of rock climbing, and their memories of rock climbing are inseparable from their memories of Dick Shafer," Senior Assistant to the President Peter Gilbert said.
Shafer was born in 1923 in Springfield, Ohio. After completing his undergraduate work at Oberlin College in 1947, he earned his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1951.
