Stephen F. Martin

Stephen F. Martin is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the M. June and J. Virgil Waggoner Regents Chair in Chemistry.

Martin is a native of New Mexico, and received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of New Mexico in 1968, where he worked with R.N. Castle, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1972 with Professor Edward C. Taylor. He did postdoctoral work at the University of Munich with Professor Rudolf Gompper, and further work with Professor George Büchi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; after which, he joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin.

He is best known for his work in alkaloid synthesis. He also developed the use of ''p''-nitrobenzoate as a nucleophile for the displacement of activated alcohols in the Mitsunobu reaction. Martin is also known for coining the term synthome, which is defined as the set of all reactions available to the chemist for the synthesis of small molecules". Provided by Wikipedia