Richard Zare to Present Whitmore Lecture on 24 April

17 April 2008 —Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University, will present the Frank Whitmore Lecture on Chemistry Education and Public Policy on 24 April 2008 at 7:30 pm in the Berg Auditorium (100 Life Sciences) on the Penn State University Park campus. This free public lecture is titled "Cars: Chemistry in Motion."

Internationally recognized for his research on laser chemistry, Zare's work has resulted in a greater understanding of chemical reactions at the molecular level. By conducting experimental and theoretical studies, he has made seminal contributions to our knowledge of molecular collision processes and to our ability to solve a variety of problems in chemical analysis. His development of laser-induced fluorescence as a method for studying reaction dynamics has been adopted widely in other laboratories. Zare has authored over 700 publications, including four books, and is named on more than 50 patents.

Zare is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and is an honorary fellow of several foreign societies. He has been selected to present over 150 named lectures, among them the 1991 Marker Lecture and the 1985 Priestley Lecture at Penn State. He has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including the National Medal of Science, the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences, the American Physical Society Irving Langmuir Prize, the American Chemical Society Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation and Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry, the Royal Society of Chemistry Faraday Medal, the Welch Award in Chemistry, and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

Zare's teaching awards from Stanford University include the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Bing Fellowship Award, the Allan Cox Medal, and the Laurance and Naomi Carpenter Hoagland Prize. He also has received from the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry, and from the American Chemical Society this year's George Pimentel Awardee in Chemical Education.

Educated at Harvard University, Zare earned his bachelor's degree in 1961 and his Ph.D. degree in 1964. After short stays on the MIT and University of Colorado faculties, he was appointed full professor of chemistry at Columbia University in 1969. In 1977, he moved to Stanford University, where he was named the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science in 1987 and Chair of the Department of Chemistry in 2005. In 2006, he also was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor.

The Frank Whitmore Lecture on Chemistry Education and Public Policy honors Frank C. Whitmore, who was Dean of the Penn State College of Chemistry and Physics from 1929 until his untimely death in 1947. Sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Section of the American Chemical Society and hosted by the Penn State Department of Chemistry, this lecture honors Whitmore's service to the American Chemical Society, which began in the Central Pennsylvania Section and the Organic Division and culminated with his election as American Chemical Society President in 1938. The lecture also honors his service to chemistry as its chief public spokesman for over a decade and as one of three coordinators of the organic chemistry effort during World War II. Finally, it recognizes Whitmore's contributions as a teacher, educator, and formulator of policy in chemistry education and curriculum reform. For more information about this lecture, please contact Teresa Spayd in the Department of Chemistry at (814) 865-4476, or tab18@psu.edu.

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