KNOWLES, Jeremy R.

When it comes to the selection of a new dean of the Faculty. Harvard's assorted biologists chemists, biochemists and physicists seem to be between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand some natural scientists here say there's an increasing desire to see one of their own assume a position perenially filled by social scientists.

But on the other this happening would mean practically the assured destruction of a professor's career in science Whereas an English or History professor could make--but not easily--the transition back to the books after six to eight years as dean, one professor notes, most scientists would probably find that the frontier in their field had passed them by

This crucial paradox is typified by Houghton Professor of Chemistry Jeremy R. Knowles, one of the only natural scientists whose name consistently crops up in discussions of the dean search.

Unlike most of the others in the rumor will. Knowles has had relatively little administrative experience, with his recent three-year stint as Chemistry Department chairman the only major post he's held

Nonetheless, colleagues and officials say. Knowles's performance as chairman--during which he helped carry off two difficult negotiations to bring prominent outside scholars to Harvard--as well as his cool Ox-Bridge temperament could well have put him on Bok's lists of finalists for the job.

The word a number of people use to describe Knowles is "smoothie," a trait born partly of the 18 year old English chemist's Oxford education.

"Jeremy has the breadth of education that would let him talk to humanists," says Frank H. Westheimer, Loeb Professor of Chemistry Emeritus Westheimer cites Knowles's knowledge of subjects beyond his own discipline, such as music and literature.

Westheimer, like other Harvard scientists, says Knowles has also distinguished himself in his handling of departmental affairs, especially in bringing MIT chemist George M. Whitesides and Cal Tech's David A. Evans to Harvard.

"These negotiations required the full cooperation of the Harvard administration and a good deal of diplomatic skill in dealing with the people involved," Westheimer recalls.

But for all these talents, Knowles, who is in England this year on sabbatical, is still not especially well-known outside of his own field of bioorganic chemistry, nor has be been particularly active in full Faculty affairs.

He has concentrated instead on his own intensive study of enzymes and how other biologically active molecules work, research for which he has won a world-wide reputation.

And it is this career that leads some of his colleagues to speculate that even if Bok were to offer him the post, he would be loathe to take it up "He proved to have exceptional administrative skills," says one admirer. "But he has a wonderful scientific career going, and I don't want to see it stop."