Joseph Danneberg, a chemistry professor whose work redefined our understanding of how hydrogen bonds in organic molecules, died on January 6 in his home in New York City. He was 81.
Danneberg, who taught at Hunter College from 1968 to 2015, published a number of important papers on hydrogen bonds, crystal and protein structures, and the bases of computational chemistry. He pioneered the use of Density-Functional Theory to study the structure and properties of peptides and proteins, and introduced corrections to common errors in quantum-chemistry analysis. He was an important contributor to Gaussian, a computational-chemistry code used internationally. He also held a post at the CUNY Graduate Center.
A mainstay of Hunter’s highly regarded chemistry department, the largest of CUNY, Danneberg’s theoretical work was first rate, and he mentored a generation of young chemists who went on to make their own mark.
Danneberg’s colleagues said that he was a titanic, engaging, and entertaining personality and will be greatly missed as a scientist and colleague.
“His work demonstrated that methods of quantum chemistry can be applied to study properties of biomolecules, which gave unique insight into fine structural details that were invisible to other methods,” said Mateusz Marianski, who worked with Danneberg as a graduate student and now is a Hunter professor. “For instance, he showed that different proteins’ secondary structures are stabilized to various degrees by cooperative hydrogen bonding. As a mentor, Joe was extremely kind and highly principled. He had a great impact on the lives of his students.”
A native of Brooklyn who earned his Ph.D in 1967 at Caltech, Danneberg traveled around the world and became close with scientists in many other countries. During a fellowship in France, he also met his wife, Anne-Marie. He loved wine, opera, and classical music.
Danneberg is survived by his wife and other relatives.
