Van Duyne was an inspiration to a generation of scientists who are now active in the field of surface-enhanced spectroscopy, and especially to many female former students and postdocs. I remember conversations with Van Duyne about his strategies for female postdocs to accommodate child rearing and laboratory research responsibilities such that they could remain productive; his ideas have been helpful to a number of colleagues.

Van Duyne was born on 28 October 1945 in Orange, NJ and died on 28 July 2019 in Wilmette, IL. His father was an engineer, and his grandfather was a chemist, so Rick (as he was known to his friends) was attracted to these fields. He went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his undergraduate degree in Chemistry, doing research with David Aikens in electrochemistry. Subsequently he did his PhD work at the University of North Carolina, where he studied electrode reaction kinetics with Charles N. Reilly. Van Duyne arrived at Northwestern University in 1971, where he quickly got involved in a combination of electrochemistry experiments and optical spectroscopy measurements using Raman spectroscopy.

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