National Lecture Tour

The International Year of Chemistry National Lecture Tours features international and national chemists visiting major locations across Australia, giving inspiring presentations that provide a link between chemistry and everyday life. The tour series will take place from June to December 2011, and the following lecturers have been confirmed:

Dr Peter Tregloan (AUS)

Peter Tregloan is Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Chemistry at The University of Melbourne and Professorial Fellow in the Centre Educational Innovation and Technology at The University of Queensland. This presentation, using live macro video projection to show experiments and reactions of carbon dioxide in all its physical states, is aimed at secondary school teachers and students.

Kindly sponsored by: Queensland Government

Prof. Lynn Francesconi (USA)

Professor Francesconi from Hunter College, New York explains the chemistry of technetium (Tc) and the lanthanide group of chemical elements. As Tc-99m, technetium is widely used in the nuclear medicine clinic for diagnosis of disease. Professor Francesconi, in collaboration with Diatide and Schering, has identified the structures of two recent targeted Tc-99m radiopharmaceuticals, that are now in the clinic for imaging Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and lung tumours.

Kindly sponsored by: University of Melbourne, Monash University, RMIT, Curtin University, UWA, UNE, Australian Academy of Science

Prof. Martyn Poliakoff (UK)

Research Professor at the University of Nottingham and a pioneer in the field of green chemistry, Professor Poliakoff has become a campus and internet celebrity as the host of The Periodic Table of Video, a 118 part series of short videos intended to familiarise the public with the elements of the periodic table. (www.periodicvideos.com).

Kindly sponsored by: IChemE

Dr Peter Wothers (UK)

Director of Studies in Chemistry at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge Dr Wothers is the UK’s answer to Dr Karl and has spent the past ten years passing on his knowledge and enthusiasm for science to a wider audience. Dr Wothers will be presenting a thought-provoking and energetic action packed show.

Kindly sponsored by: ANU, University of Melbourne, University of Wollongong, Bio21, CSIRO, Monash, GTAC

Dame Julia Higgins (UK)

Professor Dame Julia Higgins is a world-renowned polymer scientist whose research explores the boundaries between materials chemistry and engineering through neutron scattering techniques. Professor Higgins’ Selby Fellowship tour of Australia from 27 October to 17 November 2011 will include a series of public lectures in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. In Melbourne and Sydney, Professor Higgins’ talks will focus on Polymers and Neutron Scattering: A life in polymer science - new techniques and opportunities, and in Brisbane and Perth the topic will be Tangling with long molecules: why so ubiquitous, what is so special?.

Kindly sponsored by: Australian Academy of Science, University of Melbourne, UWA, IChemE, Curtin University

Prof. Martin Chalfie (USA)

Professor Chalfie is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia Univeristy and chair of the department of biological sciences. Professor Chalfie shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.

Kindly sponsored by: University of Melbourne

For further information on the National Lecture Tours please contact the IYC team at National Office on iyc2011@raci.org.au or call Tel. 03 9328 2033.

Visit www.iyc2011.org.au to find out more about how you can get involved with events and activities for the International Year of Chemistry.

Don’t forget you can register your own events on the IYC Australia calendar here.