Werdegang:
Roald Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Złoczów, Poland.
Having survived World War II, he came to the U. S. in 1949,
and studied chemistry at Columbia and Harvard Universities (Ph.D. 1962). 
Since 1965 he is at Cornell University, now as the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus. 
He has received many of the honors of his profession, including the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui).
At Cornell, Hoffmann taught introductory chemistry half of his time. Notable also is his reaching out to the general public; he was the presenter, for example, of a television course in chemistry titled "The World of Chemistry," shown widely since 1990.
As a writer, Hoffmann has carved out a land between science, poetry, and philosophy, through many essays, five non-fiction books, three plays and seven published collection of poetry, including bilingual Spanish-English and Russian-English editions published in Madrid, Orihuela, and Moscow. 

Forschungsschwerpunkte:
My research interests are in the electronic structure of stable and unstable molecules, and of transition states in reactions. I apply a variety of computational methods, semiempirical and nonempirical, as well as qualitative arguments, to problems of structure and reactivity of both organic and inorganic molecules of medium size.
My first major contribution was the development of the extended Huckel method, a molecular orbital scheme which allowed the calculation of the approximate sigma- and pie- electronic structure of molecules, and which gave reasonable predictions of molecular conformations and simple potential surfaces. These calculations were instrumental in a renaissance of interest in sigma electrons and their properties.
My second major contribution was a two-pronged exploration of the electronic structure of transition states and intermediates in organic reactions. In a fruitful collaboration R.B. Woodward and I applied simple but powerful arguments of symmetry and bonding to the analysis of concerted reactions. These considerations have been of remarkable predictive value and have stimulated much productive experimental work.
In the second approach I have analyzed, with the aid of various semiempirical methods, the molecular orbitals of most types of reactive intermediates in organic chemistry-carbonium ions, diradicals, methylenes, benzynes, etc.

Recently I and my collaborators have been exploring the structure and reactivity of inorganic and organometallic molecules. Approximate molecular orbital calculations and symmetry-based arguments have been applied by my research group to explore the basic structural features of every kind of inorganic molecule, from complexes of small diatomics to clusters containing several transition metal atoms.
A particularly useful theoretical device, the conceptual construction of complex molecules from ML_n fragments, has been used by my research group to analyze cluster bonding and the equilibrium geometries and conformational preferences of olefin and polyene metal carbonyl complexes. A satisfactory understanding of the mode of binding of essentially every ligand to a metal is now available, and a beginning has been made toward understanding organometallic reactivity with the exploration of potential energy surfaces for ethylene insertion, reductive elimination and alkyl migrative insertion reactions.
Several new structural types, such as the triple-decker and porphyrin sandwiches, have been predicted, and recently synthesized by others. On the more inorganic side, we have systematically explored the geometries, polytopal rearrangement and substitution site preferences of five, six, seven and eight coordination, the factors that influence whether certain ligands will bridge or not, the constraints of metal-metal bonding, and the geometry of uranyl and other actinide complexes. I and my coworkers are beginning work on extended solid state structures and the design of novel conducting systems.

Auszeichnungen und Ehrungen:
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1981 was awarded jointly to Kenichi Fukui and Roald Hoffmann "for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions".

Ausgewählte Publikationen:
BOOKS
1.   The Conservation of Orbital Symmetry, R. B. Woodward and R. Hoffmann, Verlag Chemie and Academic Press, Weinheim and New York, 1970.   
2.   Solids and Surfaces:  A Chemist's View of Bonding in Extended Structures,  R. Hoffmann, VCH, New York, 1988.  Translated into Russian by A. L. Tchougreev, Mir, Moscow, 1990. Translated into Chinese by H.-Y. Guo and Jing Li, J., China Chemical Industry Press, 1995. Translated into Japanese by Hiroshi Kobayashi, Youkoh Kaizu, and Toshiaki Enoki, Maruzen, 1993.

ARTICLES
1.   Heats of Formation of Hexacalcium Dialumino Ferrite and Dicalcium Ferrite, E. S. Newman and R. Hoffmann, J. Res. NBS, 56, 313 (1956).
2.   Efficient Low-Level Counting System for C11, J. B. Cumming and R. Hoffmann, Rev. Sci. Inst., 29, 1104 (1958).
3.   Theory of Polyhedral Molecules.  I. Physical Factorizations of the Secular Equation, R. Hoffmann and W. N. Lipscomb, J. Chem. Phys., 36, 2179 (1962).
649.        Expanding the Frontiers of Higher-Order Cycloadditions, David McLeod, Mathias Kirk Thøgersen, Nicolaj Inunnguaq Jessen, Karl Anker Jørgensen, Cooper Jamieson, Xiao-Song Xue, K. N. Houk, Fang Liu, Roald Hoffmann, Accts. Sci. Res. 52, 3488-3501 (2019).
650.        Varying electronic configurations in compressed atoms: from the role  of the spatial extension of atomic orbitals to the change of electronic configuration as an isobaric transformation, R. Cammi, M. Rahm, N.W. Ashcroft, R. Hoffmann, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2020, 16, 8, 5047–5056.
651.        Experimental observation of open structures in elemental magnesium at terapascal pressures, M. G. Gorman, S. Elatresh, A. Lazicki, M. M. E. Cormier, S. A. Bonev, D. McGonegle, R. Briggs, A. L. Coleman, S. D. Rothman, L. Peacock, J. V. Bernier, F. Coppari, D. G. Braun, J. R. Rygg, D. E. Fratanduono, R. Hoffmann, G. W. Collins, J. S. Wark, R. F. Smith, J. H. Eggert & M. I. McMahon, Nature Physics 18, 1307–1311 (2022).
652.        Variations on the Bergman Cyclization Theme: Electrocyclizations of Ionic Penta-, Hepta-, and Octadiynes, Dominic A. Sirianni,, Xinli Song, Salmika Wairegi, Evan B. Wang, Sebastian A. Mendoza-Gomez, Adam Luxon, Maxwell Zimmerley,  Ariana Nussdorf, Michael Filatov-Gulak,  Roald Hoffmann, and Carol A. Parish, J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 2023, 145, 39, 21408–21418.
653. Superconductivity in SrB3C3 clathrate,Li Zhu, Hanyu Liu, Maddury Somayazulu, Yue Meng, Piotr A. Guńka, Thomas B. Shiell, Curtis Kenney-Benson, Stella Chariton, Vitali B. Prakapenka, Hyeok Yoon, Jarryd A. Horn, Johnpierre Paglione, Roald Hoffmann, R. E. Cohen, Timothy A. Strobel, Phys. Rev. Res. 2023, 5, 013012.

Link zur Liste der gesamten Publikationen:
https://roaldhoffmann.com/science/publication-list-science