Richard Bader

Richard F. W. Bader (October 15, 1931 – January 15, 2012) was a Canadian quantum chemist, noted for his work on the Atoms in molecules theory. This theory attempts to establish a physical basis for many of the working concepts of chemistry, such as atoms in molecules and bonding, in terms of the topology of the electron density function in three-dimensional space.

He was born in 1931 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He obtained a BSc (1953) and a MSc (1955) from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and a PhD (1958) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He did postdoctoral work at MIT and the University of Cambridge. He was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Ottawa in 1959 and promoted to Associate Professor in 1962. He moved to McMaster University as Associate Professor in 1963, became full Professor in 1966 and had been Emeritus Professor since 1996. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1980. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1980 and he also a fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. Bader has received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. In 2011, he was one of the nominees for the Nobel Price in Chemistry.

Bader was elected a Grand Fellow of the MIRCE Akademy, Exeter, UK, in 2010.

His work on atoms in molecules is the subject of his book, Atoms in Molecules: A Quantum Theory.