Charles Martin Hall graduated from Oberlin with a degree in chemistry in 1885. As a student, he had a vision for finding a commercially viable process for extracting aluminum. Mentored by Oberlin professor of chemistry Frank Jewett, Hall unlocked the process for electrochemical aluminum refining. Before Hall’s discovery, aluminum was a semiprecious metal that was considered as valuable as silver. He is widely known as the fist person to discover an inexpensive way to extract aluminum metal from its ore.