Professor Hendrickson received his PhD in organic chemistry from Louisiana State University in 1974. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins from 1975 to 1977.
From 1977 to 1979, Dr. Hendrickson was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham; he has been at the University of Dallas since. Dr. Hendrickson is a physical organic chemist whose area of specialty is the mechanisms of free radical reactions. In 1993, he served as the Chairman of the ACS Dallas-Fort Worth Section.
Dr. Hendrickson's leisure time is spent hiking in the mountains and maintaining the cabin he built in Bosque County, TX. He has a son, David, a PhD in Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford who is a postdoc at Harvard. His daughter, Emily, a 2004 Texas A&M graduate, is an English teacher at the School of Science and Engineering at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center. His wife, Dr. Connie Hendrickson, is a consulting chemist who specializes in surfactants.
Until July 2019, Dr. Hendrickson taught the Organic Chemistry sequence at the University of Dallas: CHE 3121, CHE 3321, CHE 3122, CHE 3322.
Single electron transfer, organic free radicals, alkyl hypochlorites, mechanisms of alcohol and aldehyde oxidation by bleach and peroxide decomposition pathways.
"Hypochlorite Induced IPSO Substitution Reactions of Aromatic Alcohols and Related Compounds," Carrillo, H. V.; Rodriguez, A.Y.; Landolt, R. G.; Hendrickson, W.H. Synlett, 2011, 2069.
"Competing Reactions of Secondary Alcohols with Sodium Hypochlorite Promoted by Phase-Transfer Catalysis," Bright, Z. R.; Luyeye,C. R.; Morton, A. S.; Sedenko, M.; Landolt, R. G.; Bronzi, M. J.; Bohovic, K. M.; Gonser, M. W. A; Lapainis, T.; Hendrickson, W. H. The Journal of Organic Chemistry 2004, 70, 684-687.
"Mechanism of the Oxidation of Alcohols with Sodium Hypochlorite in Acetic Acid," Sakai, S.; Hendrickson. D. G.; Hendrickson; W. H. Tetrahedron Letters 2000, 41, 2759-2763.
"Beta-Scission of Tertiary Alkyl Hypochlorites Promoted by Phase Transfer Catalysis," Dailey, J. I.; Hays, R. S.; Lee, H.; Mitchell, M. M.; Ries, J. J.; Landolt, R. G.; Husmann, H. H.; Lockridge, J. B.; Hendrickson, W. H. The Journal of Organic Chemistry 2000, 65, 2568-2571.
"Steric and Electronic Substituent Effects in Tertiary Alkyl Peroxide Decompositions," Hendrickson, W. H..; Nguyen, C. C.; Nguyen, J. T.; Simons, K. T. Tetrahedron Letters 1995, 36, 7217-7220.
"Inert-Molecule-Separated Ion Pairs. Stereochemical, 18O, and Product Studies," White, E. H.; Field, K.; Hendrickson W. H.; Dzadzic, P.; Roswell, D. F.; Paik, S.; Mullen, P. W. J. American Chemical Society 1993, 114, 8023-8031.