Nobel Laureate Dr. Fraser Stoddart to Open Technical Program at Pittcon 2019

Dr. Stodddart to give Wallace H. Coulter Lecture titled “Serendipity Stokes Discovery: Disrupting Established Industries”

Pittsburgh, PA – August 7, 2018 – The Pittcon Program Committee is extremely pleased to announce that Fraser Stoddart, a Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 recipient, will deliver the 2019 Wallace H. Coulter Lecture.

Dr. Stoddart works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. He has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and roxtaxanes utilizing molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes.

When asked to comment on his research, Dr. Stoddart said, “In the decades to come, the advent of artificial molecular motors will impact our daily lives at work and at play, in sickness and in health, in much the same way as have electric motors during the past couple of centuries since their invention.”

He obtained his degrees from Edinburgh University and spent time at Queen’s University, Imperial Chemical Industries and the Universities of Sheffield and Birmingham in the UK before moving to the US in 1997. Presently he is a Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, having previously been the Saul Winstein Professor of Chemistry at UCLA. He was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a Knight-Bachelor in her 2007 New Year’s Honors List for his services to chemistry and molecular nanotechnology.

His lecture, “Serendipity Stokes Discovery: Disrupting Established Industries”
will take place during Pittcon 2019 on Monday, March 18 at 5:00 pm, with a happy hour at Pub Pittcon and poster session immediately following.

Visit pittcon.org for more information.

About Pittcon
Pittcon® is a registered trademark of The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, a Pennsylvania non-profit organization. Co-sponsored by the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, Pittcon is the premier annual conference and exposition on laboratory science.

Proceeds from Pittcon fund science education and outreach at all levels, kindergarten through adult. Pittcon donates more than a million dollars a year to provide financial and administrative support for various science outreach activities including science equipment grants, research grants, scholarships and internships for students, awards to teachers and professors, and grants to public science centers, libraries and museums.