The Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois

Throughout the academic year, there are many special lectures and symposia sponsored by the chemistry department. Listed below are those affiliated with organic chemistry.

Frontiers in Organic Chemistry Symposium | R.C. Fuson Visiting Professor Lectureship Series | Carl Shipp Marvel Lectures in Organic Chemistry |
Organic Reactions Lectureship Series | Organic Syntheses Lectureship Series |
Novartis Seminars in Organic Chemistry |
Bristol-Myers Squibb Lectures in Synthetic Organic Chemistry |
Nelson J. Leonard Distinguished Lecturers in Chemistry | Lectureships in Other Areas

Frontiers in Organic Chemistry Symposium

This biennial symposium is organized by a committee of graduate students representing each organic research group. The symposium celebrates research at the frontiers of organic chemistry in the general areas of synthesis, bioorganic and materials chemistry. Graduate students serve as the hosts of the speakers, which are chosen after consultation with all organic students. The symposium is sponsored since 2000 by R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Previous programs have included:

1990

• Paul Bartlett, University of California, Berkeley
• Donald Hilvert, Scripps Research Institute
• Jeremy Knowles, Harvard University
• JoAnne Stubbe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Chi-Huey Wong, Scripps Research Institute

1992

• Robert Grubbs, California Institute of Technology
• Fred Menger, Emory University
• Martin Newcomb, Wayne State University
• K. C. Nicolau, Scripps Research Institute
• Barry Trost, Stanford University

1994

• Dennis A. Dougherty, California Institute of Technology
• Jean M. J. Fréchet, University of California, Berkeley
• Josef Michl, University of Colorado
• Bruce M. Novak, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Fred Wudl, University of California, Los Angeles

1996

• Jon Clardy, Cornell University
• Heinz Floss, University of Washington
• Marye Anne Fox, University of Texas, Austin
• Paul Wender, Stanford University
• George Whitesides, Harvard University

1998

• Jonathan Ellman, University of California, Berkeley
• John F. Hartwig, Yale University
• Andrew G. Myers, Harvard University
• Alanna Schepartz, Yale University
• David A. Tirrell, California Institute of Technology

2000

• Dale L. Boger, Scripps Research Institute
• Erick M. Carreira, ETH Zürich
• Michael P. Doyle, University of Arizona
• Craig J. Hawker, IBM Almaden Research Center
• Craig A. Townsend, Johns Hopkins University

2002

• Matthew D. Shair, Harvard University
• Graham Bodwell, Memorial University of New Foundland
• Maurice S. Brookhart, University of North Carolina
• Paul J. Reider, Amgen, Inc.
• Philip E. Dawson, Scripps Research Institute

2004

• Andrew Hamilton, Yale University
• Kendall Houk, University of California, Los Angeles
• Timothy Jamison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Larry Overman, University of California, Irvine
• Peter Schultz, GNF

2006

• Benjamin F. Cravatt, The Scripps Research Institute
• Dennis P. Curran, University of Pittsburgh
• Victor Snieckus, Queen's University
• J. Fraser Stoddart, University of California, Los Angeles
• John L. Wood, Colorado State University

2008

• Dave Evans, Harvard University
• Peter Wipf, University of Pittsburgh
• Shannon Stahl, University of Wisconsin
• Linda Hsieh-Wilson, California Institute of Technology
• Timothy Swager, MIT

R.C. Fuson Visiting Professor Lectureship Series

Presented annually in the Fall semester. Reynold C. Fuson was born in Wakefield, Illinois, and received his degrees in chemistry from the University of Montana, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota. He held a postdoctoral appointment with Professor E. P. Kohler at Harvard, after which he served as an instructor for a brief period. He joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois in 1927 where he was a distinguished member for 35 years before retiring in 1963. He was a visiting professor at the Rice Institute during 1947-48 and at the University of Nevada in 1963-64. He then spent several years at Reno before returning to Champaign-Urbana for his final years.

Dr. Fuson enjoyed an outstanding reputation in research, teaching, writing, and human relations. During his active teaching career he supervised 76 undergraduate research students, 15 postdoctoral fellows, and 154 doctoral candidates, 7 of whom have been associated with Organic Syntheses, Inc. He published 285 scientific articles and was the author or coauthor of 5 textbooks, including The Systematic Identification of Organic Compounds, coauthored with R. L. Shriner and D. Y. Curtin. His research interests were broad and significant and included the enunciation of the principle of vinylogy, elucidation of the conjugate addition of Grignard reagents to unsaturated carbonyls compounds, and the discovery of stable enols and enediols of sterically hindered molecules.

His scientific contributions were acknowledged by many honors including membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois. He received the Nichols Medal, the Manufacturing Chemists' Association Award for College Teaching, the John R. Kuebler Award of Alpha Chi Sigma, The University of Minnesota Outstanding Achievement Award, and honorary degrees from the University of Montana, and he was a member of the editorial boards of Organic Syntheses and the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Previous R.C. Fuson Visiting Professors

Carl Shipp Marvel Lectures in Organic Chemistry

Presented annually in the Spring semester. C. S. Marvel was born in Waynesville, Illinois on September 2, 1894. Marvel was first introduced to chemistry while a freshman at Illinois Wesleyan on the recommendation that "the next generation of farmers was going to need scientific knowledge to get the most out of their work". After receiving his B.S. degree, he entered graduate school in 1915 at the University of Illinois.

During his first semester at Illinois, Marvel took an overload of course work which gave rise to his earning the nickname by which he is most commonly known. After working a late night in the lab, Professor Marvel would sleep as late as possible and still get to the breakfast table before the dining room closed at 7:30. For this remarkable talent he was dubbed "Speed" by his fellow dorm inhabitants.

In 1920, Speed received his Ph.D. in chemistry under Professor William A. Noyes. He then joined the faculty of Illinois as an instructor in chemistry. Speed's role in the training of outstanding chemists began with his first organic qualitative analysis course. Among the students in this course were "Wallace Carothers, who went on to be the number one polymer chemist America has produced; Samuel McElvain, who was to become professor of chemistry at Wisconsin; George Graves, who played an important part in the plutonium plant at Hanford, Washington in WWII and several others who also became leaders."*

In 1930, Speed became Professor of Organic Chemistry at Illinois and in 1953 he attained the rank of Research Professor. Professor Marvel's work at Illinois was truly outstanding. He published more than 400 papers and was in large part responsible for the establishment of the field of organic polymers. While at Illinois, Speed married Alberta Hughes and raised his two children, Molly and Jack. After Professor Marvel's retirement from Illinois in 1961, he began a new career at the University of Arizona and continued to produce outstanding chemistry, adding more than 100 publications to his list of accomplishments. Speed Marvel passed away on January 4, 1988.

Professor Marvel received many awards in honor of his achievements: election to the National Academy of Sciences, 1938; Nichols Medal, New York Section ACS, 1944; Priestly Medal, ACS, 1956; election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1960; first CS Award in Polymer Chemistry, 1964; Perkin Medal, American Section, Society of Chemical Industry, 1965; National Medal of Science, 1986.

Speed had an immense role in establishing chemistry in this country as we know it. He served to teach many who were to become our foremost chemists and he pioneered many areas of chemistry for which this country has become so well known. At Illinois, Speed will be remembered with great fondness as one of the initiators of the great Illinois tradition in chemistry.

*Quotes taken from "My 69 Years of Chemistry", C. S. Marvel, CHEMTECH, vol. 10, January 1980.

Organic Reactions Lectureship Series

Sponsored by Organic Reactions, Inc, this lectureship series features distinguished foreign speakers. Organic Reactions was created around 1939 as the brainchild of Roger Adams and some of the Organic Syntheses editorial board members. Whereas Organic Syntheses dealt with the optimized and reproducible preparation of a specific chemical compound (or illustrative of a general method), Organic Reactions was intended to be a collection of articles about specific reactions with which the selected authors had first hand experience. The unique feature of Organic Reactions that would distinguish it from other review vehicles would be to provide exhaustive literature surveys, complete compilation of extant examples and some detailed experimental procedures.

In defining the goals and mission of Organic Reactions, Adams wrote: "In the course of nearly every program of research in organic chemistry the investigator finds it necessary to use several of the better-known synthetic reactions. To discover the optimum conditions for the application of even the most familiar one to a compound not previously subjected to the reaction often requires an extensive search of the literature; even then a series of experiments may be necessary. When the results of the investigation are published, the synthesis, which may have required months of work, is usually described without comment. The background of knowledge and experience gained in the literature search and experimentation is thus lost to those who subsequently have occasion to apply the general method. The student of preparative organic chemistry faces similar difficulties. The textbooks and laboratory manuals furnish numerous examples of the application of various syntheses, but only rarely do they convey an accurate conception of the scope and usefulness of the processes. The volumes of Organic Reactions are collections of chapters each devoted to a single reaction, or a definite phase of a reaction, of wide applicability. The authors have had experience with the processes surveyed. The subjects are presented from the preparative viewpoint, and particular attention is given to limitations, interfering influences, effects of structure, and the selection of experimental techniques. Each chapter includes several detailed procedures illustrating the significant modifications of the method."

A. H. Blatt and H. R. Snyder served as associate editors, and Adams was president and editor in chief from 1942 (when the organization was incorporated in Illinois) until 1960 when Volume 10 was published. A. C. Cope succeeded Adams until his death in 1966, when W. G. Dauben became president and editor in chief followed by A. S. Kende, L. A. Paquette and currently L. E. Overman.

As with Organic Syntheses, authors of articles in Organic Reactions receive no royalties, and the editors do their work as a public service. Organic Reactions, like Organic Syntheses, involves the dedicated efforts of many prominent chemists who devote their time to the success of the enterprise. Although the editing of chapters and production of volumes is a very time consuming job, the value of Adams foresight and his legacy of interest in organic chemistry, in organic chemists, and in students still motivates those who carry this important resource forward.

Adapted from "Roger Adams, Scientist and Statesman"; D. S. Tarbell and A. T. Tarbell. Organic Reactions, Inc.

Previous Lecturers

2002 - Shu Kobayashi, Tokyo University
1999 - Alois Fürstner, Max Planck Institüt, Mülheim, Germany
1997 - Paul Knochel, University of Marburg, Germany
1995 - Philip Kocienski, University of Southhampton, England
1993 - Ian Paterson, University of Cambridge, England
1991 - Manfred Reetz, University of Marburg, Germany
1989 - Hisashi Yamamoto, Nagoya University, Japan

Organic Syntheses Lectureship Series

Like Organic Reactions, Organic Syntheses is another landmark publication that originated at the University of Illinois. The story of the Illinois "preps labs" and the evolution of Organic Syntheses represents one of Roger Adams most enduring legacies. During the summer of 1914 a few graduate students were hired to work preparing organic compounds that would be needed during the next year in teaching and research. With the outbreak of World War I in August of 1914, this project assumed new significance and the urgent national situation caused an expansion of the Illinois preps labs in 1915.

One of the first workers in the preps labs was C. S. Marvel, and in September 1917 Marvel and another graduate student were given "manufacturing scholarships" instead of teaching assistantships for the academic year. The workers received 25� per hour and eventually some academic credit. Marvel and his associates had to do considerable research on conditions and methods to develop efficient and economical procedures for the preparation of key compounds on a sizable laboratory scale. The Illinois venture was so valuable and successful that after the war much of the synthetic operation was transferred to the Eastman Kodak Co. This was the origin of the Eastman line of chemicals for research and teaching use.

The Illinois work continued in the "summer preps," in which a number of graduate students were paid to prepare chemicals needed for the research program at Illinois. Competition for jobs in the labs was keen over the years, and memories of a summer in preps remained vivid. For a later example: in 1942 H. R. Snyder directed the summer program, and twenty-six workers under two straw bosses labored in two big laboratories throughout the grueling Illinois heat. Huge, multiliter round-bottom flasks seethed on the benches lining the narrow aisles. Ventilation was meager, perhaps only the hot breeze that blew through the open windows. On many off days when black smoke filled the room, a student needed a special stamina to work at top efficiency to cut the cost of his predecessor's preparation. As the summer wore on, hands so black with chemicals that only a "gunk bath" could clean them and a certain aroma that wafted from each worker became the marks of the preps chemist.

The tested procedures of the Illinois laboratory were at first published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Then in 1921 Adams launched the plan of publishing an annual volume of methods for preparing useful organic compounds with Volume 1 of Organic Syntheses. Each preparation was to be checked in a laboratory different from that of the submitter, and exact details of procedures, reagents, yields, physical properties, alternative methods of preparation, and the names of submitters and checkers were to be given.

Many organic chemists cooperated in submitting preparations, and they regarded service on the editorial board as an honor. The success and continued vitality of Organic Syntheses shows that it filled a real need. The annual red-backed volumes and the green collective volumes, containing the carefully edited contents of the previous annual issues, are a remarkable record of the development of synthetic organic chemistry since 1921. New reactions, new reagents, new instrumentation, new ideas on reaction mechanisms, new editors, and new submitters have kept the series an active force in organic chemistry.

Adapted from "Roger Adams, Scientist and Statesman"; D. S. Tarbell and A. T. Tarbell.

Previous Lecturers - Organic Syntheses Lectureship Series

2008 - Jan E. Backvall, Stockholm University
2007 - Manfred Reetz, Max-Planck Institüt
2005 - Edward Grabowski, Merck
2003 - Masakatsu Shibasaki, University of Tokyo, Japan
2001 - Ian Fleming, University of Cambridge

Novartis Seminars in Organic Chemistry

Presented annually in the Spring semester. In 2003, the inaugural Novartis lecturer was Prof. Duilio Arigoni from the ETH Zürich.

2007 - Alanna Schepartz, Yale University
2005 - Hisashi Yamamoto, University of Chicago
2003 - Fall - Donna Blackmond, Imperial College, London
2003 - Spring - Duilio Arigoni, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich

Bristol-Myers Squibb Lectures in Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Previous lecturers

Nelson J. Leonard Distinguished Lecturers in Chemistry

Department-wide lecture series. This lecture series is sponsored by the Nelson J. Leonard Distinguished Lecturer Fund, set up in 1986 by the late Mrs. Louise Leonard, Eli Lilly and Company, the Monsanto Company, Organic Syntheses, Inc., and Professor Leonard's colleagues and students. At the time of his retirement in 1986, Professor Leonard had been at the University of Illinois for 44 years, directed 120 graduate students, and published over 400 papers.

Professor Leonard received his B.S. from Lehigh in 1937, a B.Sc. from Oxford in 1940, a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1942, and a D.Sc. from the University of Oxford in 1983. He has also received three honorary doctors' degrees.

Internationally acclaimed for his skill in organic synthesis, his work has answered questions of fundamental importance to biochemistry and life processes. He has invented fluorescent probes and dimensional probes of enzyme-coenzyme binding sites and DNA double-helical cross sections.

Among his many honors are the ACS award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (1963), the Medal for Creative Research in Synthetic Organic Chemistry of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (1970), the Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry (1981), the first Creativity Award, University of Oregon (1994), and the first Paul G. Gassman Distinguished Service Award, Division of Organic Chemistry, American Chemical Society (1994). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a fellow and past vice-president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and an honorary member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.

Professor Leonard is now a Faculty Associate in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

Past lecturers include Larry Marnett, Amos B. Smith III, A.I. Scott, David A. Tirrell, Albert Eschenmoser, Peter Schultz, Sidney Hecht, and John Roberts.

Lectureships in Other Areas

Ada Dosiy Lectures in Biochemistry
This distinguished lectureship series has included fifteen Nobel laureates, ten of whom received their Nobel Prize after serving as Doisy lecturers. Recent lecturers include Peter Moore, Harry Noller, Janos Lanyi, Sir John Walker, Pim Stemmer, Ron Davis, Carl Woese, and Norman Pace.

John C. Bailar Lectures
Inorganic Chemistry lectureship, with recent speakers including Robert Crabtree, Karl Wieghardt, James Ibers, Richard Schrock, Konrad Seppelt, and Joan Valentine.

Willis H. Flygare Memorial Lectures
Physical Chemistry lecture series that has included Rudolph Marcus, Yuan T. Lee and A. David Buckingham.

G. Frederick Smith Memorial Lecturers
Analytical Chemistry lecture series with recent visitors including Leroy Hood, Masuo Aizawa, Fred Anson, Franz Hillenkamp, and Joel M. Harris.

Sylvia M. Stoesser Lectures
A lecture series that brings in women who have made important contributions to the field of chemistry. Invited speakers have included Lynn Schneemeyer, Joan B. Berkowitz and Valerie J. Kuck.