Conferences & Lectures :
Jonathan L. Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series

The Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture took place on Wednesday, December 3rd. Lecturer Professor Andrew A Gewirth of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1987. You can read more about his lecturer title "Oxygen Reduction and the Potential Dependent Structure of Water: Surface-Molecule Interactions Relevant to Fuel Cell Catalysis"



Please join us in 2011 for our next Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture.



Special Announcement:
On January 31st of 2007 the Chemistry Department announced a new award which recognized student leaders. The Sessler Student Leader Award was created to recognize the many contributions by one of the department's outstanding alumni, Professor Jonathan Sessler, Ph.D., '82.

Graduate student, Sam Lord, was the winner of the award in recognition of his leadership and outstanding service to the Department of Chemistry throughout his career.

About Gewirth's lecture:
In this talk, we will discuss two different aspects related to the structure and reactivity of electrode surfaces. First, we report on our efforts directed at establishing the mechanism of oxygen and peroxide reduction on bare Pt and Cu, and on Au surfaces modified with order metal monolayers. By using a combination of spectroscopic, imaging, and x-ray scattering techniques combined with detailed calculations, we have shown that a crucial step involves the spontaneous clevage of the O-O bond to form a mixed metal-hydroxide complex. This hydroxide complex is reduced during the electron transfer event, leading to the product water. This understanding provides directions for synthesis of advanced catalysts for oxygen reduction. In particular, we have synthesized a series of metal coordination polymers exhibiting oxygen reduction activity.  Second, we use in situ infrared visible sum frequency generation spectroscopy (SFG) to examine the OH stretching modes of water at the electrified metal/water interface. The SFG shows the presence of different types of water at the interface, the relative abundance of which is potential dependent. These observations are consistent with the flip-flop model for water organization at the interface, wherein the charge at the surface controls water orientation. Measurements conducted in the absence of electrolyte reveal the absence of highly hydrogen-bonded water, which suggests that the electrolyte provides a template to organize water at the interface. 

About Andrew Gewirth:
 He joined the Illinois faculty in 1988 after postdoctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin. Now Director of the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois, Professor Gewirth has received a number of awards, including a Presidential Young Investigator Award, an A. P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Department of Energy Outstanding Accomplishment Award in Materials Chemistry, and the University of Illinois University Scholar Award. His work addresses chemistry at interfaces, especially the solid-liquid interface.


About the Sessler Lectures:
The Department of Chemistry received a generous donation in 1997 from Professor Jonathan Sessler of the University of Texas-Austin, establishing an endowment to support the Sessler Distingished Alumni Lecture Series. Jonathan L. Sessler earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1982, working under the direction of Professor James P.Collman and John I. Brauman. Sessler is best known for his pioneering work on "expanding porphyrins".

The Sessler Lecture is scheduled every two years in January, and alumni of Stanford University's Department of Chemistry are chosen as the speakers. Professors Jonathan Sessler (2001), Roger Kornberg (2003), and K. Berry Sharpless(2005) have presented these lectures in previous years.