Dear friends,
Welcome to the spring edition of the Chemists Club! This issue features several members of our department who have made breakthrough contributions to science and served the community in many ways. You will surely enjoy reading the interview with Steve Berry, the James Franck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, who describes his long involvement with environmental and energy law in the course of his inquiry into thermodynamics and other aspects of physical chemistry. Steve is an inspiration—and, at the age of 86, he continues to co-teach his Energy and Energy Policy course in the University’s Big Problems curriculum. We remember our dear colleague, Professor Robert Gomer, who, in addition to making groundbreaking strides in surface physics and chemistry, was a staunch and vociferous opponent of nuclear weapons. For many years, Bob and his wife, Anne, have helped to cultivate a vibrant intellectual community among emeritus faculty by hosting a bimonthly lecture series in their Hyde Park home. This series continues under the name of the Robert and Anne Gomer lecture series. We feature the research of one of our newer colleagues, Professor Scott Snyder. Scott is not only one of the premier synthetic chemists in the world, but he is also an outstanding teacher and a co-author of one of the most popular textbooks for organic chemistry. And we also remember distinguished alumna Mildred Dresselhaus, whose dazzling career studying carbon was matched by her advocacy and mentorship of other women in science.
With the many recent hires, the department has been abuzz with activity, with grants and awards pouring in, and publications and lectures going out. We also had an exceptional bounty of matriculating graduate students last Fall, nearly twice the size of our typical class. I invite you to come and see first-hand all that is happening at Chicago. We will be holding a reception on June 1 in the Gordon Center Atrium as part of Alumni Weekend. We sincerely hope you will join us then for refreshments, short talks on current research, lab tours, and mingling with current students and faculty. Please RSVP to chemistsclub@gmail.com. The success we have enjoyed as a department is in no small part due to the role played by our alumni, and we hope we will have the opportunity to express our gratitude and share our work in person.
Viresh Rawal
Professor and Chair