Dr. Wrighton started his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1972 as Assistant Professor of Chemistry. He was appointed Associate Professor in 1976 and Professor in 1977. From 1981 until 1989 he held the Frederick G. Keyes Chair in Chemistry. In 1989 he was appointed the first holder of the Ciba-Geigy Chair in Chemistry. He was Head of the Department of Chemistry from 1987-1990 and became Provost of MIT in 1990, a post he held until the summer of 1995.

Dr. Wrighton is the author or co-author of more than 300 articles published in professional and scholarly journals, and he holds 14 patents. He has research interests in the areas of transition metal catalysis, photochemistry, surface chemistry, molecular electronics, and in photoprocesses at electrodes. Principal objectives of his research have been to elucidate the basic principles underlying the conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels and electricity, to discern new catalysts and ways of making them, to understand chemistry at interfaces, and to provide the knowledge base for development of new electro-chemical devices. Dr. Wrighton has given more than 40 named lectureships at distinguished colleges and universities in the United States and other countries.

Dr. Wrighton was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 1974-1976, and was the recipient of a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Grant in 1975-1980. The American Chemical Society awarded him the Pure Chemistry Award in 1981 and the Award in Inorganic Chemistry in 1988. He was awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1983. Also in 1983, he was awarded the Gregory and Freda Halpern Award in Photochemistry by the New York Academy of Sciences and the E. O. Lawrence Award by the United States Department of Energy. In 1984 he was selected as the recipient of the Fresenius Award of Phi Lambda Upsilon. Dr. Wrighton's teaching activities have been rewarded with the MIT Chemistry Department Graduate Teaching Award in 1981 and the MIT School of Science Teaching Prize in 1987. About 70 individuals have received the Ph.D. degree under his supervision at MIT.

Dr. Wrighton was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986.

Dr. Wrighton was a presidential appointee to the National Science Board (2000-06), which serves as science policy advisor to the President and Congress and is the primary advisory board to the National Science Foundation.