Dr. V. Prakash Reddy, professor of chemistry, died April 18. A memorial service will be held 1-4 p.m. Sunday, April 28, at Null & Son Funeral Home in Rolla.

Reddy joined Missouri S&T in 2001 as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 2006, and to professor in 2015. Reddy also served as senior investigator in the Center for Research in Energy and Environment at S&T, and was a research investigator in the Center for Biomedical Research at S&T.

In 2023, Reddy was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for “impactful contributions to the field of organic chemistry, particularly to the areas of superacids, carbocations, electrophilic reactions, organofluorine, and medicinal chemistry.”

Reddy’s research addressed drug design for conditions including Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury. His research group also worked to mitigate toxic effects of pesticides.

He was a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Faculty Fellow, an honorary member of the Golden Key National Honor Society, earned four patents, wrote two books and wrote over 100 published articles.

Reddy earned a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Hyderabad in India in 1979, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1986. After earning his Ph.D., Reddy served as a research associate at Syracuse University and then as a senior research associate at the University of Southern California.