A chemist’s chemist

Some 50 years after launching what turned out to be a stellar career in chemistry, one that has fetched almost every award and accolade a chemistry professor might hope to win, Tobin J. Marks could afford to sleep in once in a while. But he doesn’t. He still gets up at 6 AM and travels to his Northwestern University lab seven days a week. “I get up about an hour later on the weekends,” he confesses. But even then, he deliberately does not have coffee at home. Marks says he prefers to wait until he reaches his office to have that first cup of joe. “It’s psychological. It motivates me to get going.” It’s hard to imagine that Marks, 72, needs motivation. He exudes the stuff. To colleagues who know him well, and even to those who know of him only through his scientific publications and presentations, Marks has a