Welcome to the Spring 2025 Seminars!
Spring 2025 Seminars will be on Fridays @ 3:00 pm in Biodesign Auditorium
If you have any questions regarding SMS seminars please contact: SMSSeminars@asu.edu
Seminar Calendar
Spring 2025 Seminars
January 17:
Joe Subotnik (Princeton University)
“Phase Space Approaches to Electronic Structure: A New Paradigm for Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity”
January 24:
Thomas Tomasiak (University of Arizona) – PSF 166
Topic: TBD
January 31:
Alexander Benderskii (University of Southern California)
Topic: TBD
February 7:
Joshua LaBaer (Arizona State University) – PSF 166
Topic: TBD
February 14:
Joshua Goldberger (The Ohio State University)
Topic: TBD
February 20:
Eyring Lecture: Samuel Stupp (Northwestern University) – Marston Theatre
Topic: TBD
February 21:
Eyring Lecture: Samuel Stupp (Northwestern University) – PSF 166
Topic: TBD
February 28:
O’Keeffe Lecture: Gary Brudvig (Yale University)
Topic: TBD
March 7:
Rigoberto Hernandez (Johns Hopkins University)
Topic: TBD
March 21:
Arvind Ramanathan (University of Arizona) – PSF 166
Topic: TBD
March 28:
Ioan Andricioaei (University of California, Irvine)
Topic: TBD
April 4:
Neil Ayres (University of Cincinnati)
Topic: TBD
April 11:
Markita Landry (University of California, Berkeley)
Topic: TBD
April 18:
O’Keeffe Lecture: Tianquan “Tim” Lian (University of Pennsylvania)
Topic: TBD
April 25:
Alannah Hallas (The University of British Columbia)
Topic: TBD
Eyring
The Eyring Lectures in Chemistry and Biochemistry is a prestigious interdisciplinary lecture series designed to foster stimulating discussions by distinguished scientists at the forefront of their fields. Each lecture series features a keynote presentation that captures the excitement and challenges of chemistry, followed by a specialized colloquium that delves into the scientific frontiers of the topic. These lectures provide an opportunity for scholars-in-residence to engage with faculty, students, and other interested individuals through both formal talks and informal discussions.
The lecture series is named in honor of LeRoy Eyring, Regents' Professor of Chemistry, whose exceptional contributions to research, teaching, and professional leadership at Arizona State University were instrumental in elevating the School of Molecular Sciences to international prominence.
Spring 2024
- Professor Ken Dill
Stony Brook University- General Lecture
"The future of physical modeling of biomolecules and cells"
March 28 | 6:00 pm | Marston Theatre
Ken Dill PDF Flyer - Technical Presentation
"The Origins of Life: An uncanny resemblance to the old Protein Folding Problem"
March 29 | 3:00 pm | NEEB 105
Ken Dill PDF Flyer
- General Lecture
Fall 2023
- Professor Chad Mirkin
Northwestern University- General Lecture
"Foundational tools, techniques, and materials as outputs of the modern age of nanotechnology”
November 16 | 6:00 pm | Marston Theatre
Chad Mirkin PDF Flyer - Technical Presentation
"Repurposing the Blueprint for Life Through Colloidal Crystal Engineering with DNA”
November 17 | 3:00 pm | Biodesign Auditorium
Chad Mirkin PDF Flyer
- General Lecture
Spring 2023
- Professor Jack Szostak
University of Chicago- General Lecture
"The Origin of Life: Not as Hard as it Looks?"
March 16 | 6:00 pm | Marston Theatre
Jack Szostak PDF Flyer - Technical Presentation
"Why did Biology Begin with RNA and not some other Genetic Material?"
March 17 | 3:00 pm | Biodesign Auditorium
Jack Szostak PDF Flyer
- General Lecture
Fall 2022
- Professor David Tirrell
California Institute of Technology- General Lecture
"Genetic Engineering of Macromolecular and Cellular Materials"
Thursday, November 3 | 6:00 pm | Marston Theatre (ISTB4)
David Tirrell PDF Flyer - Technical Presentation
"Selective Proteomic Analysis of Cellular Sub‐populations in Complex Biological Systems"
Friday, November 4 | 2:30 pm | Biodesign Auditorium
David Tirrell PDF Flyer
- General Lecture
Spring 2022
- Professor Paul Weiss
University of California, Los Angeles- General Lecture
"Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology and Medicine"
Thursday, March 17 | 2:30 pm | Marston Theatre
Paul Weiss PDF Flyer Technical Presentation
"Atomically Precise Chemical, Physical, Electronic, and Spin Contacts"
Friday, March 18 | 2:30 pm | Biodesign Auditorium
Paul Weiss PDF Flyer
- General Lecture
Fall 2021
- Professor Mario Capecchi
University of Utah- General Lecture
"The Making of a Scientist: An Unlikely Journey"
Thursday, November 4 | 6:00 pm | Armstrong 101
Mario Capecchi PDF Flyer Technical Presentation
Mutant Hoxb8 Microglia Are Causative for Chronic Anxiety and OCD‐Spectrum Disorders in Mice.
Friday, November 5 | 2:30 pm | Biodesign Auditorium
Mario Capecchi PDF Flyer
- General Lecture
Fall 2019
- Professor Steven Boxer
Stanford University- General Lecture
"GFP - the Green Revolution Continues"
Thursday, November 14 | 6:30 pm | PSH-153 - Technical Presentation
"Electric Fields and Enzyme Catalysis"
Friday, November 15 | 1:30 pm | Biodesign Auditorium
- General Lecture
Spring 2019
- Professor Emily Carter
Princeton University- General Lecture
"Sustainable Energy Materials from First Principles"
Thursday, March 21 | 6:30 pm | PSH-153
- General Lecture
Spring 2019
- Professor Sunney Xie
Harvard University & Peking University- General Lecture
"Life at the Single Molecule Level: From Single Molecule Enzymology to Single Cell Genomics"
Thursday, October 24 | 6:30 pm | PSH-153 - Technical Presentation
"Stimulated Raman Scattering Microscopy: Seeing the Invisible in Biology and Medicine"
Thursday, October 25 | 3:40 pm | PSH-153
- General Lecture
Spring 2018
- Professor David Baker
University of Washington- General Lecture
"The Coming of Age of De Novo Protein Design"
Thursday, March 29 | 6:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Recent Advances in Olefin Metathesis by Molybdenum and Tungsten Catalysts"
Friday, March 30 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Fall 2017
- Professor Richard Royce Schrock
MIT- General Lecture
"A Discovery and a Nobel Prize 30 Years Later"
Thursday, October 19 | 6:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Recent Advances in Olefin Metathesis by Molybdenum and Tungsten Catalysts"
Friday, October 20 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Spring 2017
- Professor Gerhard Wagner
Harvard University- General Lecture
"Solution NMR: From a Chemist's Tool to Solving Protein"
Thursday, April 13 | 6:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Engineering Phospholipid Nanodiscs for Membrane Protein Studies"
Friday, April 14 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Fall 2016
- Professor Laureate Thomas R. Cech
University of Colorado, Boulder- General Lecture
"The Long Road to Precision Medicine: How Mutations Activate an 'Immortality Gene' and Help Drive Cancer"
Thursday, November 3 | 6:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"LncRNAs, Histone Modification, and Epigenetic Silencing in Cancer"
Friday, November 4 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Spring 2015
- Professor Cynthia J. Burrows
The University of Utah- General Lecture
"Peering into the Dark Matter of DNA: Structures and Functions beyond Watson & Crick"
Thursday, November 5 | 6:30 pm | PSH-151 - Technical Presentation
"Single-Molecule Analysis of the Effects of Oxidative Stress on G:C-rich Sequences in DNA"
Friday, November 6 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Spring 2015
- Professor Tobin J. Marks
Northwestern University- General Lecture
"Interface Science of Plastic Solar Cells"
Thursday, February 12 | 6:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Thermochemically Leveraged Strategies for Biofeedstock Catalysis"
Friday, February 13 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Fall 2014
- Professor Peter G. Schultz
The Scripps Research Institute- General Lecture
"An Expanding Genetic Code"
Thursday, November 13 | 6:30 pm | PSH-152 - Technical Presentation
"A Chemist's Foray into Translational Research"
Friday, November 14 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Spring 2014
- Professor Richard P. Van Duyne
Northwestern University- General Lecture
"Molecular Plasmonics: Nanoscale Spectroscopy and Sensing"
Thursday, February 20 | 7:30 pm | PSH-151 - Technical Presentation
"New Tools for the Study of Single Molecule Chemistry at the Atomic Length Scale and Femtosecond Time Scale"
Friday, February 21 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Fall 2013
- Professor Carolyn Bertozzi
University of California, Berkeley- General Lecture
"Illuminating Sugars: The 'Dark Matter' of the Cell Surface"
Thursday, October 31 | 7:30 pm | PSH-151 - Technical Presentation
"Bioorthogonal Chemistry: An Enabling Tool for Biology and Drug Development"
Friday, November 1 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Spring 2013
- Professor Geri Richmond
University of Oregon- General Lecture
"Understanding Environmentally Important Processes at Aqueous Surfaces"
Thursday, February 7 | 7:30 pm | PSH-152 - Technical Presentation
"Macromolecular and Nanoparticle Assembly at Liquid Surfaces"
Friday, February 8 | 11:30 am | PSH-152
- General Lecture
Fall 2012
- Professor Carl Lineberger
University of Colorado, Boulder- General Lecture
"Anion Chemistry Research, and How It Led to 'A Look Inside the World of Science and Technology Policy'"
Thursday, November 8 | 7:30 pm | PSH-151 - Technical Presentation
"Molecular Reaction Dynamics in Time and Frequency Domains: A Wonderful Playground for Collaboration between Experiment and Theory"
Friday, November 9 | 3:40 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Spring 2012
- Professor Kendall N. Houk
University of California, Los Angeles- General Lecture
"Designing New Enzymes"
Thursday, January 26 | 7:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Applications of Cycloadditions"
Friday, January 27 | 3:30 pm | PSH-151
- General Lecture
Fall 2011
- Professor C. Austen Angell
Arizona State University- General Lecture
"Cold water, world’s weirdest liquid, wants to be two of them (and seems to succeed near -140ºC)"
Thursday, October 27 | 7:30 pm | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Behavior of water as the Rosetta stone for the 'strong/fragile' glass-forming liquids problem"
Friday, October 28 | 3:30 pm | PSH-150
- General Lecture
Spring 2011
- Professor Omar Yaghi
University of California, Los Angeles- General Lecture
"Mr. Yaghi, Where Are You From?: A Journey Into Science and Society"
Thursday, March 31 | 7:30 p.m. | PSF-166 - Technical Presentation
"The 'Gene' Within Metal-Organic Frameworks"
Friday, April 1 | 3:30 p.m. | PSF-166
- General Lecture
Fall 2010
- Professor Gerald Joyce
The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute- General Lecture
"The Origin of Life in the Laboratory"
Thursday, October 21 | 7:30 p.m. | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Darwinian Evolution in the Laboratory"
Friday, October 22 | 3:30 p.m. | PSF-173
- General Lecture
Spring 2010
- Professor Paul McMillan
University College of London- General Lecture
"Diamond and High Pressure Science"
Thursday, April 29 | 7:30 p.m. | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"From Materials Chemistry to High Pressure Biology"
Monday, May 3 | 3:30 p.m. | PSC-103
- General Lecture
- Professor Jay Keasling
University of California, Berkeley- General Lecture
"Life 2.0: Synthetic Biology"
Thursday, March 25 | 7:30 p.m. | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Synthetic Biology for Synthetic Chemistry"
Friday, March 26 | 3:00 p.m. | PSH-150
- General Lecture
Fall 2009
- Professor Nathan Lewis
California Institute of Technology- General Lecture
"Where in the World Will Our Energy Come From?"
Thursday, September 10 | 7:30 p.m. | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Sunlight-Driven Hydrogen Formation by Membrane-Supported Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting"
Friday, September 11 | 3:30 p.m. | PSH-150
- General Lecture
Spring 2009
- Alexander Pines
University of California, Berkeley- General Lecture
"NMR and MRI with Laser Detection and No Magnet"
Thursday, February 12 | 7:30 p.m. | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Some Recent Developments in Unconventional NMR and MRI"
Friday, February 13 | 3:30 p.m. | PSH-150
- General Lecture
Fall 2008
- Klaus Schulten
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign- General Lecture
"Computational Microscopy: The Living Cell"
Thursday, September 18 | 7:30 p.m. | PSH-150 - Technical Presentation
"Physics of Photosynthesis in Purple Bacteria"
Friday, September 19 | 3:40 p.m. | PSH-152
- General Lecture
Spring 2008
- Gérard Férey
Institut Lavoisier, Versailles University, France
Spring 2007
- A. Paul Alivisatos
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 2005 & Spring 2006
- Michael O'Keeffe
Arizona State University - Graham R. Fleming
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 2004 & Spring 2005
- Mostafa El-Sayed
Georgia Institute of Technology - Francis "Frank" DiSalvo
Cornell University
Spring 2004
- Kurt Wüthrich
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland
The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California
Spring 2003
- Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts
University of California, Irvine, California - Sir John Meurig Thomas
University of Cambridge - George Olah
University of Southern California - Robert Curl
Rice University
Fall 2000 – Spring 2001
- George Olah
University of Southern California - Robert Curl
Rice University
Fall 1999 – Spring 2000
- John E. Walker
General Research Council of Molecular Biology
Fall 1997 – Spring 1998
- Roald Hoffmann
Cornell University - Leroy Eyring
Arizona State University
Fall 1996 – Spring 1997
- Thomas R. Cech
University of Colorado
Fall 1995 – Spring 1996
- Richard E. Smalley
Rice University - Alexandra Navrotsky
University of California, Davis - Richard N. Zare
Stanford University
Fall 1994 – Spring 1995
- Jean-Marie Lehn
Collège de France
Fall 1993 – Spring 1994
- Harry B. Gray
California Institute of Technology - Derek A. Davenport
Purdue University
Fall 1992 – Spring 1993
- Peter B. Dervan
California Institute of Technology - Yuan Tseh Lee
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 1991 – Spring 1992
- Stuart A. Rice
University of Chicago - Gabor A. Somorjai
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 1990 – Spring 1991
- Robert J. Madix
Stanford University - Jacqueline K. Barton
California Institute of Technology
Fall 1989 – Spring 1990
- Leo Brewer
University of California, Berkeley - Ronald Breslow
Columbia University - Fred W. McLafferty
Cornell University - Donald H. Levy
University of Chicago
Fall 1988 – Spring 1989
- Ahmed H. Zewail
California Institute of Technology - John B. Goodenough
University of Texas - Raymond Jeanloz
University of California, Berkeley - James B. Thompson
Harvard University
O'Keeffe
The O’Keeffe Lecture Series honors the outstanding scientific contributions of Regents' Professor Michael O’Keeffe, recognizing his pioneering work in the study of crystalline inorganic solids and his groundbreaking role in the development of reticular chemistry. This lecture series celebrates his profound impact on the field of chemistry, particularly in the areas of structural chemistry and materials science, which have significantly advanced our understanding of complex materials.
Professor O’Keeffe’s innovative research has not only shaped the direction of modern chemistry but has also played a key role in enhancing the reputation of Arizona State University as a hub for cutting-edge and transformative research. Through this series, we continue to acknowledge his legacy and inspire future generations of researchers to pursue excellence and innovation in science.
Fall 2024
Sara Skrabalak
Professor, Indiana University - Bloomington
"Multimetallic Nanocrystals by Design"
September 27 | 3:00 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Yuk-Ching Tse-Dinh
Professor, Florida International University
"Type IA topoisomerases - Universal regulator of DNA/RNA topology"
October 18 | 3:00 p.m. | PSF-166
Spring 2024
Neal Devaraj
Professor, University of California, San Diego
"Membrane Mimetic Chemistry in Synthetic and Living Cells"
February 9 | 3:00 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Download PDF
Chuan He
Professor, The University of Chicago
"Nucleic Acid Chemical Biology"
February 23 | 3:00 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Fall 2023
Steve Granick
Professor, University of Massachusetts
"Some Puzzles and Research Opportunities in Soft Matter Science and Engineering"
October 20 | 3:00 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Spring 2023
Wilfred van der Donk
Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
"Biosynthesis and Engineering of Macrocyclic Peptide Natural Products"
February 10 | 3:00 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Download PDF
Tijana Rajh
Professor and Director, Arizona State University
"Nanoparticles Meet Living Systems"
March 3 | 3:00 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Download PDF
Fall 2022
Robert J. Cava
Professor, Princeton University
"Finding New Materials – A Chemical Perspective"
October 14 | 2:30 p.m. | PSF-166
Spring 2022
Joseph D. Puglisi
Professor, Stanford University
"The Exquisite Choreography of Translation Initiation"
April 8 | 2:30 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium
Fall 2021
Omar Yaghi
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
"Reticular Chemistry and Materials for Harvesting Water from Air Anytime, Anywhere"
November 19 | 2:30 p.m. | Biodesign Auditorium