| The
oldest and one of the most prestigious series of endowed lectures
sponsored by a chemistry department at an American university.
During a six-week residency, the Baker lecturer gives two formal
presentations per week to a large and diverse audience. An informal
seminar is presented weekly for students and faculty members
interested in the subject. The lecturer has an office in Baker
Laboratory and is available to faculty and students for further
discussion.
The Baker Lectures have brought
to Cornell an outstanding group of scientists at the peak of
their professional distinction. Six Baker lecturers between 1960
and 1969 subsequently received the Nobel Prize. Recent visitors
include such distinguished scientists as Alan R. Battersby, Stuart
A. Rice, Allen J. Bard, Linus C. Pauling, Richard H. Holm, Jeremy
R. Knowles, John S. Waugh, Ryoji Noyori, Rudolph Marcus, Charles
Cantor, John E. Bercaw, Gerhard Wegner, Graham R. Fleming, Dieter
Seebach, Michael E. Fisher, John Brauman, Carl Lineberger, Steven
Lippard, Jean M.J. Fréchet, Harry Gray, JoAnne Stubbe, and Robert Grubbs.
Among the most celebrated Baker
Lectures are those subsequently published in classic monographs:
Linus Pauling's Nature of the Chemical Bond (1937), Paul Flory's
Principles of Polymer Chemistry (1948), Christopher Ingold's
Structure and Mechanism in Organic Chemistry (1953), Ronald P.
Bell's The Proton in Chemistry (1958), Herbert C. Brown's Boranes
in Organic Chemistry (1972), Gabor A. Somorjai's Chemistry in
Two Dimensions: Surfaces (1981), and Kurt Wüthrich's NMR
of Proteins and Nucleic Acids (1986).
For a list of previous lectures, please click here. |
