Anton Behme Burg was the founder of the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 chemistry department and an expert on boron

Boron

Boron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...

.

Burg joined USC in 1939 as an assistant professor. He built up USC's chemistry department, making it one of the best chemistry departments in the United States by the 1950s. Burg retired in 1974.

During his time with Morris S. Kharasch

Morris S. Kharasch

Morris Selig Kharasch was a pioneering organic chemist best known for his work with free radical additions and polymerizations. He defined the peroxide effect, explaining how an anti-Markovnikov orientation could be achieved via free radical addition. Kharasch was born in Russian Empire in 1895...

 at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, he worked with Herbert C. Brown

Herbert C. Brown

Herbert Charles Brown was a chemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate for his work with organoboranes....

, who won a Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

for his work following up on Burg's research.