Nobel Laureate Sir Fraser Stoddart will present a guest lecture Friday, Nov. 3, as part of the Highlands in Chemistry seminar series sponsored by the Virginia Tech Department of Chemistry, part of the College of Science

A professor of chemistry at Northwestern University, Stoddart won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016 for the design and synthesis of molecular machines. His lecture is entitled “The Rise and Promise of the Mechanical Bond in Chemistry and Beyond.”

The talk will focus on the research on molecular machines that lead to Stoddart’s receiving of the Nobel Prize, touching on the emergence of research on the mechanical bond within the field of chemistry and current challenges of the research.

The talk will be given at 2:30 p.m. Friday in 140 Hahn Hall North. The lecture is part of the Friends of Larry Taylor endowed lecture series, which is part of the Highlands in Chemistry seminar series. The Highlands Series is a weekly event hosted by the Department of Chemistry designed to share research ideas within the chemistry community and beyond. Speakers in academia, industry, and government come from around the world to share their research with colleagues and students.

The series was started by Alan Clifford, who was appointed chemistry department head in 1966, and is now on its 51st year.

The Friends of Larry Taylor Chemistry Excellence fund is an endowed fund that was established by the Department of Chemistry Advisory Council in June 2004 and has been supported by numerous alumni and friends. The fund honors Larry Taylor, who headed the department from 1997 to 2004. Taylor established the advisory council, originally called the Department of Chemistry Alumni Advisory Board, in 1998.

Stoddart earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at Edinburgh University in 1964 and 1966, respectively. He is a Board of Trustees Professor and is the director of the Center for the Chemistry of Integrated Systems at Northwestern. He has worked at Queen’s University, the University of Sheffield, the University of Birmingham in Great Britain, and the University of California Los Angeles.

He has earned numerous honorary degrees and was appointed Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II. He has also received many awards, including to 2012 Distinguished Citizen Award and the 2014 Centenary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Written by Jessie Rogers, of Suffolk, Virginia, a senior in the Department of English, part of the College Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

 

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