Nils Andreas Sørensen
Nils Andreas Sørensen was a Norwegian chemist and professor of organic chemistry at the Norwegian Technical College in Trondheim.
He was born in Kristiania, Norway. He was a son of Inge Sørensen and Helene Raknerud, and was a grandson of newspaper editor Lars Raknerud. He earned his Ph.D. degree in 1937 and was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the Norwegian Institute of Technology from 1939 to 1977. He published about one hundred scientific papers with a primary focus on carbohydrates, carotenoids and natural acetylene compounds. In addition to the field of organic chemistry, he also contributed to botanics.
During the Second World War, he was arrested by Nazi German occupying forces in 1943 and was imprisoned for two years.
Sørensen was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. He was an honorary member of Norsk Kjemisk Selskab, and received the Nansen medal for Outstanding Research.
He was decorated Knight, First Class of the Order of St. Olav in 1965. A sculpture of Sørensen by Johannes Block Hellum is located at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
