Renowned Princeton chemist to deliver 2012 Smissman Lectures
LAWRENCE — A world-renowned chemist from Princeton University will deliver the 2012 Edward E. Smissman Memorial Lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
David W.C. MacMillan, professor and chair of the Princeton Department of Chemistry, will speak about the "Advent and Development of Organocatalysis" during his public lecture. The 2012 Smissman Memorial Lectures Medal recipient will also deliver two scientific lectures, "Multi Catalysis in Chemical Synthesis" at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 27 at Alderson Auditorium and "Photoredox Catalysis in Organic Synthesis" at 11 a.m. Friday Sept. 28, in Room 2020 at the KU School of Pharmacy. All lectures are free and open to the public.
MacMillan was born in Scotland and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow. In 1990, he left the UK to begin his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Larry Overman at the University of California-Irvine. Four years later, he moved to a postdoctoral position at Harvard University where his studies centered on enantioselective catalysis.
He began his independent career at University of California-Berkeley in 1998 before moving to the California Institute of Technology two years later. In 2006, he moved to Princeton University as the A. Barton Hepburn Chair of Chemistry and director of the Merck Center for Catalysis.
The MacMillan research program is centered on chemical synthesis with specific interests in new reaction development, enantioselective organocatalysis and the rapid construction of molecular complexity.
Edward E. Smissman was a professor and chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry from 1960 until his death in 1974. The Edward E. Smissman Memorial Lectures, sponsored by the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Edward E. and Clarine F. Smissman Memorial Fund, were established to honor him as the first chair of the department and as an innovator in interdisciplinary research at KU. The lectures are given biennially in even numbered years.