FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  Mary Anthony

mary.anthony@trinity.edu

Oct. 12, 2009

Chemist to Speak During Distinguished Scientists Lecture at Trinity University

SAN ANTONIO – Henry Schaefer, professor of chemistry at the University of Georgia, will discuss “The Third Age of Quantum Chemistry” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19, in Laurie Auditorium, as part of the Trinity University Distinguished Scientists Lecture Series. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In the early 1960s, it was hard to imagine that theoretical chemistry would ever lead to reliable predictions of molecular structures, spectra, or chemical reaction mechanisms.  Today, the leading chemical journals often require theoretical predictions to accompany important new experimental discoveries.  How did this revolution in chemistry research, which began in 1970, continue against formidable opposition for the next decade?

Dr. Schaefer holds bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in chemical physics from MIT and Stanford, respectively.  He has also held faculty positions at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Texas.  He is the author of more than 1,200 scientific publications, the majority appearing in the Journal of Chemical Physics or the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and was the sixth most highly cited chemist in the world from 1981 to 1997. 

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry, London.  Dr. Schaefer was awarded the American Chemical Society’s Award in Pure Chemistry, Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award, Award in Theoretical Chemistry, and Ira Remsen Award.  The Royal Society of Chemistry awarded him the Centenary Medal in 1992 and he was the 2005-2006 recipient of the Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize.

The Trinity University Distinguished Scientists Lecture Series is made possible through an endowment gift from Mr. and Mrs. Walter F. Brown of San Antonio. 

For more information, contact Trinity University’s Office of University Communications at 210-999-8406.

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