July 18, 1913 �" March 18, 2012
Elbert G. Smith, Ph.D., 98, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Mills College, died on March 18.
Born in Eugene, Oregon, Mr. Smith earned his bachelor's degree from Oregon State College in 1936 and a doctorate from Iowa State College in 1943. After teaching at Hamline University and the University of Denver, he became associate professor of chemistry at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. In 1958, he moved to Oakland and became head of the chemistry department at Mills College, where he taught until 1978. During his career, he was also staff member of the National Research Council dealing with chemical notation systems.
Mr. Smith's specialty was chemical structure information retrieval. He helped develop Wiswesser Line Notation (WLN), a notation system that was readily searched by early computers and was capable of identifying specific molecular fragments of larger structures. Mr. Smith wrote two books detailing this important notation system; these were translated into many languages.
In later years, Mr. Smith's love of music led him to develop a computer program that identifies musical pieces based on a series of notes.
Mr. Smith is survived by his friend Glen Black, of Oakland; and a nephew, Milo Thomson, in Oregon.