Richard Smalley was University Professor, the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics at Rice University. He won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerenes, a family of carbon molecules that includes buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders of carbon atoms that conduct electricity as efficiently as copper and have 100 times the strength of steel at one-sixth the weight. As the director of Rice's Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory, Smalley's recent research focused on how to most efficiently and effectively produce, process and use nanotubes. He died Oct. 28, 2005, in Houston after a long battle with cancer. He was 62.

Credit: Photos from Rice University