Dr. Horacio A. Mottola
Emeritus Regents Professor
Horacio A. Mottola, an Emeritus Regents Professor of Chemistry at Oklahoma State University, died on June 3, 2015, at his home in Florida. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 22, 1930. He received his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Buenos Aires, earning Licentiate and Doctoral degrees in Chemistry in 1962. He spent 2 years of pre-doctoral research studies at the University of Minnesota (with the late Ernest B. Sandell) and 2 years of postdoctoral studies at the University of Arizona (Tucson) in Professor Henry Freiser’s research group. After teaching for 2 years at the University of the Pacific (Stockton, California), he joined Oklahoma State in the autumn of 1967. He retired from Oklahoma State in June 1998. Professor Mottola was Chairman of the Chemistry Department at Oklahoma State from March 1991 until March 1994. He has authored more than 155 papers in reviewed journals, co-edited a monograph on Chemical Modification of Surfaces, and is the author of a book on Kinetic Aspects of Analytical Chemistry. He and his research group developed a closed-loop flow system with the circulating enzyme glucose oxidase. Injection of glucose samples, followed by an evaluation of oxygen consumption at an exposed platinum wire electrode, enabled the quantitative determination of glucose. This glucose analyzer allowed a medical technician to determine the glucose level in a blood sample within 1-5 minutes. The method was adopted by Eppendorf Corporation and was in use in hospitals in Belgium France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Professor Mottola was a member of the Editorial Board of Analytica Chimica Acta. He received numerous awards, including the Oklahoma Scientist of the Year (1981) from the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences, the Oklahoma Chemist of the Year (1990), and the Sigma Xi Award (1981). During the latter part of his tenure at OSU, Dr. Mottola was honored by the journal Analytical Chemistry by having his work over many years cited as one of the best 60 papers published over 6 decades. He was an excellent colleague, friend, teacher, and a credit to OSU.
*shared by Dr. K. Darrell Berlin
