Dr. Richard Schrock, who was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2005 and is a member of the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), will present two addresses at Hope College on Thursday and Friday, April 15 and 16.
On Thursday, April 15, at 7 p.m., he will discuss the research that led to his Nobel Prize. On Friday, April 16, at 4 p.m., he will discuss his group's current research. Both presentations will be in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall.
The public is invited to both talks. Admission is free.
Schrock shared the 2005 Nobel Prize with Yves Chauvin of the Institut Français du Pétrole and Dr. Robert H. Grubbs of Caltech for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis, a chemical reaction now used daily in the chemical industry for the efficient and more environmentally friendly production of important pharmaceuticals, fuels, synthetic fibers and many other products. The current research that he will discuss in his second address at Hope will be "Two Transition Metal Catalyzed Reactions."
Schrock completed his bachelor's degree at the University of California at Riverside in 1967 and his doctorate at HarvardUniversity in 1971. He spent one year as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge University followed by three years at the Central Research and Development Department of E. I. duPont de Nemours and Company. In 1975 he moved to M.I.T., where he became full professor in 1980 and the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry in 1989.
He has received numerous honors in addition to the Nobel Prize. He has been an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. He has received the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (1985), the Harrison Howe Award of the Rochester ACS section (1990), an Alexander von Humboldt Award (1995), the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry (1996), the Bailar Medal from the University of Illinois (1998), and an ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2001. He was the Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Lecturer and Medalist (2002) and the Sir Edward Frankland Prize Lecturer (2004), has received the F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry (2006), the Theodore Richards Medal from the Northeast ACS section (2006), and the August Wilhelm von Hofmann Medal from the German Chemical Society (2005). He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
Schrock was associate editor of "Organometallics" for eight years, and has published more than 500 research papers.
Schrock's visit has been arranged by the students of the college's Chemistry Club. He is speaking through the weekly seminar series coordinated by the department of chemistry at Hope.
Graves Hall is located at 263 College Ave., between 10th and 12th streets.