Born on October 14, 1918 in Nara, Japan, Kenichi Fukui was the first Japanese scientist to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Both his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in engineering were obtained at Kyoto Imperial University. In 1951 he joined the Department of Hydrocarbon Chemistry at Kyoto University and became a full professor of physical chemistry. The first publication of his theoretical work on the relationship between molecular orbitals and chemical reactivity in 1954 was largely ignored because many experimental chemists at that time did not have the necessary mathematical background to understand its potential; also, many theoretical chemists thought the theory too simplistic. In 1970, Fukui taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology as a National Science Foundation senior foreign scientist. In 1981, he was a foreign fellow of the National Academy of Science. Fukui continued to develop and refine his theory and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his research on the role of specific molecular orbitals (frontier orbitals) in the mechanisms of chemical reactions.

Until his death on January 9, 1998, Kenichi Fukui was the Director of the Institute for Fundamental Chemistry at Kyoto University.

1. The Nobel Prize Internet Archive: Kenichi Fukui
2. Nobel e-Museum: Autobiography of Kenichi Fukui

1. Jaggi, O. P. Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 1901-1992; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1993; pp 639-647.
2. The Who's Who of Nobel Prize Winners 1901-1990, 2nd ed.; Schlessinger, B. S., Ed.; Oryx Press: Phoenix, AZ, 1991; p 35.
3. Wilhelm, P. A Nobel Prize Winner in Stockholm. In The Nobel Prize; Teknowledge: Stockholm, Sweden, 1983; pp 53-71.