Edwin Vedejs

Over the course of his career, Vedejs published over 230 peer-reviewed articles. He served as an associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society from 1994 to 1999, as chair of the NIH Medicinal Chemistry Study Section from 1990 to 1991, as chair of the Organic Division of the American Chemical Society in 2003, and as a member of the Organic Syntheses Board of Editors from 1980 to 1988. He served as editor (along with Scott E. Denmark) of the three volume series Lewis Base Catalysis in Organic Synthesis. Over the course of his 45 years in academia, he mentored over 80 doctoral students, and numerous post-doctoral fellows and undergraduates.

He attended Grand Rapids Junior College for a few years before transferring to the University of Michigan where he received a BS degree in 1962. He moved to the University of Wisconsin and joined the group of Professor Hans Muxfeldt [de] for his Ph.D. studies (Progress toward the total synthesis of terramycin), which he completed in 1966. From 1966–67, he did post-doctoral research on the total synthesis of prostaglandins at Harvard University in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor E. J. Corey.

Edwin "Ed" Vedejs was born in Riga, Latvia to Velta (nee Robežnieks) and Nikolajs Vedejs. Not long after his birth, the German occupation of Latvia during World War II occurred followed by the Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944. These events forced his family to settle in the Fischbach Displaced Persons camp in Germany for six years. In 1950, they emigrated to the United States and first settled in Fort Atkinson, WI. They eventually moved to Grand Rapids, MI.

Edwin Vedejs (/vɛˈdeɪz/) (Latvian: Edvīns Vedējs; January 31, 1941 – December 2, 2017) was a Latvian-American professor of chemistry. In 1967, he joined the organic chemistry faculty at University of Wisconsin. He rose through the ranks during his 32 years at Wisconsin being named Helfaer Professor (1991–1996) and Robert M. Bock Professor (1997–1998). In 1999, he moved to the University of Michigan and served as the Moses Gomberg Collegiate Professor of Chemistry for the final 13 years of his tenure. He was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2011. After his retirement in 2011, the University of Michigan established the Edwin Vedejs Collegiate Professor of Chemistry Chair. Vedejs died on December 2, 2017, in Madison, Wisconsin.