Christer Nordman

Christer was born January 23, 1925 in Helsinki, Finland, to Eric and Gertrud Nordman, the eldest of five children.

He attended Gymnasiet Lärkan secondary school, and spent summers in the countryside, fishing, exploring, and searching for unusual plants and butterflies. He enjoyed collecting stamps and matchbox covers, chess, building model airplanes, and conducting chemical experiments.

As a teenager during wartime, he helped watch for Russian planes overnight from an observation tower and worked at an ammunition factory. At 16, he joined the junior branch of the Finnish volunteer guard. For several months, he rode rural nighttime patrols by bicycle, until stricter age limits were enacted, and he returned home. In 1943, he was drafted into the Finnish Army, and sent to the Artillery Training Center in Riihimäki, joining the 17th Heavy Artillery "Tiger” Battalion, 2nd Division, as a radio operator. He was deployed to the front line on the Karelian Isthmus, where he served until the war’s end.

Christer earned a chemical engineering degree from Helsinki University of Technology in 1949, then received a scholarship to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota, where he studied crystallography under future Nobel laureate William Lipscomb. During this time, he coauthored several publications, including his thesis, The Crystal and Molecular Structure of Tetraborane. After completing his PhD in 1953, he and his new wife Barbara moved to Philadelphia, where he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute for Cancer Research. In 1955 he joined the faculty of the Chemistry Department at the University of Michigan, becoming a full Professor of Chemistry in 1964. In 1971, he received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) fellowship for sabbatical study at Oxford with Nobel laureate Dorothy Hodgkin, and at Uppsala University in Sweden, which afforded the family a year abroad.

Christer’s research focused on x-ray crystallography and computational methods for solving the structure of macro-molecules, including viruses, proteins, and cholesterol. He served as editor and peer review for Acta Crystallographica, attended meetings of the International Union of Crystallography and the American Crystallographic Association, and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Finnish Society of Science and Letters. Students knew him as an enthusiastic crystallography and physical chemistry teacher.

In 1995, Christer retired as professor emeritus, and in 1997 was honored with the Patterson Award of the American Crystallographic Association for lifetime achievement in his field. Post-retirement, Christer still could often be found in his office on campus working on research. He enjoyed summers in the Finnish countryside, fall apple-picking in orchards near Ann Arbor, and winter cruises with Outi, who he married in 1994.

Christer is survived by his wife, Outi Marttila-Nordman and her children Antti Laukkanen (Susanna Melkas), Mari Laukkanen (Kai Schleutker), and Hannu Laukkanen; his sisters Carin Nordman and Bodil Soderberg (Milton); his former wife Barbara Nordman and their children, Christina Nordman (Gary Dewey), Aleta Adams, Eric Nordman, and Carl Nordman (Luisa); grandchildren Andrew Nordman-Kasko (Michele Sedlak), Catherine Bleta (Andy), Ian Adams, Anthony-Emil Nordman, Jacob Nordman, and Aaron Nordman; and great-grandchildren Ethan, Avalon, Owen, and Brysen.

Christer was predeceased by his father Eric Johan Nordman, mother Gertrud (Nordgren) Nordman, sisters Gunilla Nordman and Inger Genberg, and granddaughter Anika Nordman.

A memorial in honor of Christer will take place in the Michigan Room of the Michigan League on August 14th from 12-4 PM. A service in Helsinki will be held at a later date. For more information contact Andrew at [email protected]