William L. Masterton received his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1953. Two years later he began to work at the University of Connecticut, where he taught general chemistry and a graduate course in chemical thermodynamics. He has received numerous teaching awards, including an award from the Student Senate at the University of Connecticut, of which he was most proud. Dr. Masterton is co-author of the all-time best-selling general chemistry textbook CHEMICAL PRINCIPLES, which has sold well over 1.5 million copies. Dr. Masterton's field of research, solution thermodynamics, prepared him well for making maple syrup each March at the family farmhouse in New… Hampshire.
Cecile Nespral Hurley received her MS at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1979, she has served as Lecturer and Coordinator of Freshman Chemistry at the University of Connecticut, where she directed a groundbreaking National Science Foundation-supported project on cooperative learning in general chemistry. She is one of a prestigious group of University Teaching Fellows who are selected by their fellow faculty members as models of teaching excellence and dedication. In addition, she coordinates the High School Cooperative Program in Chemistry through which superior Connecticut high school students take the university's general chemistry course at their schools. In her spare… time, Professor Hurley roots for the University of Connecticut women's basketball Huskies--and roots out weeds from her country garden, which she likes to imagine rivals Monet's at Giverny.