Page 20 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 5

P rofessor

Joanna

Aizenberg

gives the 2017

Hinshelwood

Lectures

The Hinshelwood lectures in physical and theoretical chemistry were established in honour of Sir Cyril Norman
Hinshelwood OM FRS (1897–1967), Dr Lee’s Professor and Head of Physical Chemistry from 1937 until his retirement
in 1964. Sir Cyril was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov “for their
researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions”.
Since their inception in 1980, the Hinshelwood lectures have been given by some of the world’s most distinguished
scientists, including Nobel Laureates Ahmed Zewail, Richard Ernst , Wolfgang Ketterle and Steven Chu, and 5 Chemistry
Wolf Prize winners. This year’s lectures were given by Joanna Aizenberg, Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials
Science at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the first woman to give the Hinshelwood
lectures. Professor Aizenberg pursues a broad range of research interests that include biomineralization, biomimetics,
self-assembly, crystal engineering, surface chemistry, nanofabrication, biomaterials, biomechanics and biooptics. Her
Hinshelwood lecture series, Bioinspired Materials, is now available to all in podcast form at https://podcasts.ox.ac.
uk/series/hinshelwood-lectures-bioinspired-materials. We are grateful to Shell International for sponsorship of the
Hinshelwood lectures.

Animating Chemistry

Professor Kylie Vincent and Dr Holly Reeve have been working with
Oxford Sparks, an organisation that aims to share Oxford’s exciting
research with everyone, and to support teachers to enrich their science
lessons. Their short animated film, What Can Chemists Learn from
Nature? can be seen at http://www.oxfordsparks.ox.ac.uk/content/
what-can-chemists-learn-nature . Holly says: In the Vincent group,
we love to increase awareness of how biology and chemistry are
merging to provide more sustainable methods for making the essential
chemicals we rely on every day. We also enjoy communicating our
research to everyone, whenever we can!

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Periodic The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry