Dutch professor to deliver this year’s Hall Lectures

It may be a long way from home, flying across the Atlantic. But when Roeland J. M. Nolte, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, mounts the podium to deliver this year’s celebrated W. Heinlen Hall Lectures at the University, he will feel very much at home.

From July 19-22, Professor Nolte will be speaking to his colleagues and the general University community on a number of topics relating to the molecule, ranging from mastering molecular matter and supramolecular polymers and bio-hybrid materials to supramolecular catalytic systems.

Professor Nolte will be treading a distinguished path. Since its humble beginnings in 1975, the Hall lecturership has drawn acclaimed scholars and leading research chemists from across the country and beyond—a fact that has made this summer event one that the chemistry department says “students and faculty eagerly anticipate.” The excitement is justified, given the uncommon exposure of students and faculty to cutting-edge investigations at the frontiers chemistry research at these lectures.

BGSU’s chemistry department established the lecturership in honor of W. Heinlen Hall, who as a professor at the University from 1936-71—and as chair of the chemistry department through a period of extraordinary growth and expansion—took the department to new heights of excellence.

Professor Nolte comes fully equipped to do justice to the topics of this summer—and to the legacy of the series, say series organizers. Born in Bergh, the Netherlands, he received a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from the University of Utrecht in 1973. He became interested in the fields of host-guest chemistry and supramolecular chemistry during a post-doctoral stage in the group of Nobel laureate Donal J. Cram at the University of California at Los Angeles.

He was awarded the first Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science Chair in Chemistry in 2003 and is the editor-in-chief of the RSC journal Chemical Communications and also a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of the journal Science. His research interests span a broad range of topics at the interface of supramolecular, macromolecular and biomimetic chemistry, and he and his group have published roughly 425 scientific papers.

According to the chemistry department, there will be ample opportunities for faculty and students to interact with Professor Nolte in both individual and group settings, and this summer’s series promises to be as exciting and illuminating as ever.