PULLMAN, Wash. — Noted chemist Graham Fleming will visit the Washington State University campus Feb. 2-3 as part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program.
Fleming is the Melvin Calvin Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and director of the physical bioscience division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. He will meet with WSU students and faculty members, take part in classroom discussions and give a joint physics and chemistry department colloquium.
In his general lecture Feb. 2, aimed at undergraduate and graduate science and engineering students, Fleming will discuss “Photons and Femtoseconds: How Nature Converts Sunlight with Chemical Energy.” The lecture will be at 7 p.m. in Webster Physical Sciences Building, Room 16. The Feb. 3 colloquium will be at 4:10 p.m. in Webster, Room 17. Both lectures are open to the public. Refreshments will be served at 3:45 p.m.
“We are very fortunate to be able to attract a scholar of Dr. Fleming’s stature to visit WSU,” said Tom Dickinson, professor of physics and materials science. “His wealth of experience with multidisciplinary research in areas of high, worldwide interest will be tremendously valuable to students who are planning research careers and may encourage other students to consider careers in science.”
Fleming’s research involves ultrafast laser studies of elementary chemical and biological processes. The focus of his recent work has been uncovering the principles of the rapid and efficient initial electron transfer steps of photosynthesis. He also has developed new experimental techniques and new methods of calculation to probe these and other complex processes.
Before joining Berkeley in 1997, Fleming was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of London, he is the recipient of awards from the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Physical Society. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) in 1971 and a doctorate from the University of London in 1974.
Fleming’s Feb. 2 lecture is sponsored by the WSU College of Sciences, the WSU departments of physics and chemistry, the Center for Integrated Biotechnology and the Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
Through the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program, 12 or more distinguished scholars visit 100 colleges and universities with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. Fleming’s WSU visit was coordinated by Michael Neville, faculty member in of the Philosophy Department. Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society.
