| Karl Weighardt | |
| Birth Date: | 25 July 1942 |
| Nationality: | German |
| Fields: | Inorganic Chemistry, Coordination Chemistry, Bioinorganic Chemistry |
| Workplaces: | Max Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry Ruhr University Bochum TU Hannover University of Leeds Heidelberg University |
| Alma Mater: | Heidelberg University |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Hans Siebert |
| Academic Advisors: | A. Geoffrey Sykes |
| Doctoral Students: | Karsten Meyer, Carsten Krebs |
| Notable Students: | John Berry (postdoc), Connie C. Lu (postdoc) |
Karl Wieghardt (born 25 July 1942, in Göttingen) is a German inorganic chemist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim. He was active in the preparation and detailed characterization of models for iron and manganese metalloenzymes, metal complexes of noninnocent ligands, and magnetic interactions in polynuclear metal complexes.
Wieghardt was born in 1942 in Göttingen, Germany, the son of the physicist Karl Wieghardt and grandson of the mathematician also named Karl Wieghardt. From 1947-1952, Wieghardt lived in England as his father was working at the Admiralty Research Laboratory of the British Navy in Teddington. While in the UK, he attended elementary school in Elstead, Surrey. Following the nuclear espionage affair surrounding Klaus Fuchs, Wieghardt's father was dismissed from the Admiralty Research Laboratory, and he moved his family back to Germany. At the age of 12, Wieghardt obtained a chemistry kit as a Christmas present from his parents, then proceeded to set his basement on fire. His parents then forbade him from doing or studying chemistry for the next eight years. In 1962, Wieghardt graduated from the Johanneum secondary school in Hamburg.
Wieghardt then attended Heidelberg University, where he studied chemistry. Wieghardt obtained his PhD in 1969 at Heidelberg University with Prof. Hans Siebert.[1] [2] His dissertation involved the x-ray structure analysis of multinuclear complexes of cobalt(III).[3] [4] [5] He then conducted postdoctoral studies with Prof. A. Geoffrey Sykes, at the University of Leeds, where he studied the kinetics and reaction mechanisms of electron transfer processes in binuclear cobalt complexes.[6] [7] [8] [9] [10]