Kenkichi Sonogashira (1931)

Japanese chemist, educated at Osaka University, where he was a professor, and later at Osaka City University, from which he retired in 2004.

In 1975, with Yasuo Tohda and Nobue Hagihara, he discovered that a copper(I) salt allows terminal alkynes to be coupled with aryl and vinyl halides, in the presence of a palladium catalyst, at room temperature: the Sonogashira coupling.

More information: en.wikipedia.org