Distinguished Lecture Series

November 12, 2024 | 3pm

• In this lecture, Professor Sir Richard CATLOW will first discuss some general aspects and challenges relating to the development of the circular economy. He will next discuss key scientific challenges concerning CO₂ utilisation and green ammonia production, emphasising the vital role of catalytic chemistry in meeting these challenges.

November 4, 2024 | 4:45pm

• In this lecture, Professor Benjamin LIST will explain the importance of acid catalysis and introduce new chiral Brønsted acids, focusing on how imidodiphosphate catalysts improve acidity and selectivity for activating challenging substrates.

January 11, 2024 | 5pm

• This lecture focuses on mechanism and thermodynamics-based strategies to deconstruct/recycle PET and other polyesters,  linear and branched polyesters, polyolefins, and nylons using structurally well-defined earth-abundant molecule-derived heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts and complementary DFT analysis.

December 4, 2023 | 5:45pm

• In this lecture, Professor John CHERRY will discuss the global water crisis that poses imminent threats to humans.

November 29, 2023 | 11:30am

• In this lecture, the presentation will include discussion and analysis of recent natural product targets that have been synthesised in the group. It will focus on target-oriented synthesis as an engine for the generation of novel methods and approaches to bioactive agents.

November 15, 2023 | 2:30pm

• In the first lecture, Professor Roger BLANDFORD will propose that top heavy star clusters form in the nuclei of newly-formed galaxies and that these evolve to develop cores of stellar black holes. Then Professor Victoria KASPI will summarise what is known about the FRB phenomenon, how they can be used as novel probes of the Universe's Large Scale Structure in the second lecture.

October 13, 2023 | 5:30pm

• In this lecture, Professor Sharon HAMMES-SCHIFFER will summarise the main concepts from the PCET theory developed by Professor Hammes-Schiffer's research team and will present applications to catalysis and energy conversion.

October 5, 2023 | 5:30pm

• In this lecture, Professor Chad A MIRKIN will discuss using DNA as a programmable material to guide the assembly of nanoscale building blocks into colloidal superstructures.

April 27, 2023 | 5:30pm

• In this lecture, Professor Yinyu YE  will illustrate the opportunities at this interface between chemical biology and drug discovery by describing a series of examples we are actively working on in our laboratory at Peking University. 

October 18, 2022 | 5:45pm

• Professor Yinyu YE will present a few recent mathematical optimisation case studies.

June 16, 2022 | 10am

• Professor William McKinnon will outline facets of Europa’s geology and history, as well as NASA’s plans to explore Europa and investigate its habitability.

June 10, 2022 | 8:30pm

• Professor Zhengyu Liu of The Ohio State University will discuss the Holocene temperature conundrum.

May 11, 2022 | 4pm

• Professor Jens Marklof of University of Bristol will explain that the butterfly effect can also be used as a mathematical tool to understand relationships between physical laws on vastly different length scales.

February 24, 2022 | 4pm

• Professor Nigel Brandon of Imperial College London will discuss the challenges and opportunities for further innovation in electrochemical technologies.

June 23 2021 | 10am

• Professor Hongyu Zhao will introduce a statistical model that is commonly used to characterise the genetic contributions to complex traits and its robustness to model misspecifications.

May 21, 2021 | 10am

• Professor Bin Yu will illustrate the PCS framework in the modelling stage through the development of DeepTune images for characterisation of neurons in the difficult V4 area of primary visual cortex.

May 6, 2021 | 4pm

• Professor Bert Weckhuysen will discuss the latest developments in operando spectroscopy and microscopy, and thereby aspects of measurements and assessments, etc. 

April 13, 2021 | 8pm

• Professor David Liu will describe the development of precision genome editing technologies that do not require double-strand DNA breaks or donor DNA templates.

April 1, 2021 | 4pm

• Professor Fuwen Wei will address the population history, adaptive evolution to the bamboo diet from different aspects.

March 17, 2021 | 10am

• Professor Priyamvada Natarajan will discuss what we know and how we know the significance of the dark entities in the universe, and review our current state of understanding.

March 1, 2021 | 11am

• Professor Amy Rosenzweig will discuss copper-dependent biological methane oxidation and address issues with retaining enzymatic activity and uncertainties regarding the possible involvement of additional protein components.

February 24, 2021 | 4:30pm

• Professor Fraser Armstrong will discuss enzymes' role as superb electrocatalysts, and share his investigation on the properties of a vast number of existing and yet-to-emerge enzymes, promoting a new era of discovery.

February 2, 2021 | 10am

• Professor Philip Kim will discuss several research efforts to realise unusual quasiparticle pairing mesoscopic devices based on stacked vdW interfaces between 2-dimensional materials.

January 14, 2021 | 10:30am

• Professor Philip Kim will provide a historical overview of the epidemic in Wuhan, present the transmission regression models for estimating transmission rates and other implications from the COVID-19 data.

November 11, 2020 | 5pm

• Professor Sir Richard Catlow will discuss how this powerful combination of the concerted use of synchrotron, neutron and modelling techniques might be applied more widely in catalytic science.

November 2, 2020 | 4:30-5:30pm

• Mr Eberhard Schoeneburg, Chairman and CEO of Brain-Net Ltd. will discuss the current state of the art and especially the future of BIT.