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William M. Gelbart (known as Bill) was born in Syracuse, New York along with his identical twin brother, Steve. He grew up in Syracuse and attended the last two years of high school in New Jersey (Teaneck), very close to New York City. Gelbart and his brother both knew that they wanted to follow their father’s footsteps in doing research as a scientist and professor, their father being a mathematician. Steve ended up becoming a mathematician like his father, but Gelbart left the "family business" and became a physical chemist.

Gelbart's serious study of physical chemistry began at Harvard University, where he did his undergraduate study from the Fall of 1967. He majored in Chemistry and Physics, and also enjoyed his first experience of research under the mentorship of William Klemperer. This research was an important event in Gelbart's career as it sparked confirmed his early preference for theoretical versus experimental work. After graduating from Harvard, Gelbart immediately went on to his graduate work at University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1970) and began his doctoral thesis work under Stuart Rice, tackling a general theoretical approach radiationless transitions in gas phase molecular spectroscopy and photophysics. During these years, Gelbart focused his work on breakdown of Born-Oppenheimer approximation in “small” molecules as well as low-pressure and molecular-beam experiments.

[1] Ben-Shaul,A. et al. William M. Gelbart: An Appreciation. Journal of Physical Chemistry. 2016, 120, 5788−5789.

[2] William M. Gelbart and Barbara A. Baron: Generalized van der Waals theory of the isotropic-nematic phase transition. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 1977, 66, 207