Henry Fritz Schaefer III was born on June 8, 1944, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He spent his formative years in various locations, attending schools in Syracuse, New York; Menlo Park, California; and East Grand Rapids, Michigan. After completing high school, he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated in 1966 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical physics. He then pursued graduate studies at Stanford University, earning his Ph.D. in chemical physics in 1969.
Soon after earning his doctorate, Schaefer became a professor of chemistry. He spent 18 years at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research in theoretical and computational chemistry gained high recognition. In 1979–1980, he served as the inaugural Director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. Subsequently, he joined the University of Georgia, where he became the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry.
Henry Schaefer has received numerous prestigious awards throughout his career. In 1979, he was honored with the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Pure Chemistry, followed by the Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award in 1983. In 1992, he received the Centenary Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry in London. He was the recipient of the ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry in 2003 and the Ira Remsen Award from Johns Hopkins University that same year. Two years later, he was awarded the $10,000 Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Theoretical Chemistry Institute.
| Birth Date: | 8 Jun, 1944 |
| Age: | 75 yrs |
| Occupations: | Chemist University teacher |
| Citizenship: | United States of America |
| Birth Place: | Grand Rapids |
| Education: | Stanford University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Gender: | Male |
| Description: | American chemist |
