Close Up Radio Spotlights Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Dr. William Lester

Oakland, CA – Dr. William Lester is professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley in Chemistry.

“I came from the south side of Chicago,” recalls Dr. Lester. “I was given a typing test at the University of Chicago where I did well. Subsequently, I was offered one of two jobs – cleaning monkey cages in the medical school for 88¢ an hour or typing for a professor of molecular physics at the University of Chicago for $1.09 an hour. I head over to physics as a high school senior. I was also awarded the Victoria A. Adams scholarship, which led to me going to the University of Chicago.”

“I also received my Master’s at the University of Chicago,” adds Dr. Lester. “I also attended Washington University in St. Louis, for doctoral studies for one year. I then went to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC with research at the National Bureau of Standards.”

"My first job after receiving my doctorate and followed by a postdoctoral appointment in the Theoretical Chemistry Institute, Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, was as a non-tenured Lecturer in the UW Department of Chemistry," mentions Dr. Lester.

"I was selected in 1978 as Director of the newly created National Resource for Computation in Chemistry (NRCC), sited at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and appointed an LBNL Associate Director," notes Dr. Lester.

"With the close of the NRCC in 1981, I was appointed Professor in the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Senior Scientist at LBNL," mentions Dr. Lester. "I became the first Black Professor in the Department of Chemistry."

“My father once told me that you can do anything in life that you can put your mind to,” concludes Dr. Lester.