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TAUBE LECTURE
The 2009 Taube Lecture took place on Thursday, January 22nd. Our honored speaker was Professor Christopher Cummins of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You can read more about his lecture titled "Early Metal Chemistry of the Elemental Molecules N2, P4, and As4" below.  About the lecture: Three-coordinate molybdenum(III) complexes engage in the dinuclear scission of molecular nitrogen, leading to corresponding terminal nitride complexes. This reaction is a solution-chemistry analog of the rate-determining step in the industrial Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis: dissociative adsorption of N2. Reactions will be described that are under development for transfer of N2-derived N atoms into organic molecules, a principal focus being on the synthesis of organic nitriles. This is also a method for 15N-isotopic labeling of organic molecules. By analogy with N2, molecular P4 is a key industrial, elemental molecular starting material. Activation of P4 with early metal complexes leads to terminal metal phosphide complexes having metal-phosphorus triple bonds. Transfer reactions are being devised to deliver P4-derived P atoms into both organic molecules and unusual P-containing bound ligands. A special focus of this line of inquiry is the generation of unsaturated P-containing reactive transients, to be characterized by investigation of their trapping reactions in liquid media. Highlighting this avenue are experiments aimed at the generation and trapping of the elusive P2 molecule. Time permitting, related syntheses stemming from the As4 molecule will be described. Because of its thermal and photochemical instability, starting with As4 presents special challenges vis-à-vis P4 and N2. About Professor Cummins: Christopher “Kit” Colin Cummins benefited from formative undergraduate research experiences carried out sequentially in the laboratories of Professors Susan E. Kegley, James P. Collman, and Peter T. Wolczanski, respectively of Middlebury College, Stanford University and Cornell University. He graduated from the latter institution with an A.B. degree in 1989. Following this he undertook inorganic chemistry graduate studies under the direction of Professor Richard R. Schrock at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1993 with a thesis entitled “Synthetic Investigations Featuring Amidometallic Complexes”. Also in 1993 Kit joined the chemistry faculty at MIT as an Assistant Professor, and in 1996 he was promoted to his current rank of Professor. Kit's work has been recognized with the Phi Lambda Upsilon National Fresenius Award, the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, the NSF Alan T. Waterman Award, an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, the Dannie-Heineman Preis of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, the ACS F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry, and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences. Kit has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a corresponding member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Kit's research interests include inorganic synthesis methodology, inorganic radical reactions, low coordination-number complexes, small molecule activation, atom and group transfer, metal-ligand multiple bonds, the stabilization of unusual bound ligands, and molecular allotropes of the p-block elements. About the Taube Lecture Series: The Taube Lecture Series was created in honor of the work of Henry Taube, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, and recipient of the 1983 Nobel Prize in chemistry. A member of the Stanford faculty since 1962, Taube was "one of the most creative contemporary workers in inorganic chemistry," according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded him the Nobel Prize for his insights into how electrons are transferred from one molecule to another during chemical reactions. "Henry was a scientist's scientist and a dominant figure in the field of inorganic chemistry," said friend and collaborator Jim Collman, professor emeritus of chemistry at Stanford. "I knew him for 40 years. He was an unparalleled personality and really had no counterparts." Born in Neudorf, Saskatchewan, Canada, on Nov. 30, 1915, Taube attended the University of Saskatchewan, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1935 and a master of science in 1937. He received a doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley in 1940 and was an instructor there from 1940-41. "I became deeply interested in chemistry soon after I came to Berkeley," Taube recalled. "Just the general atmosphere of the college was conducive of this; chemistry was in the air. There was little pretense [among the faculty] and they didn't feel that they had to impress others. At any rate, the fire was lit there quite early in my stay." He joined the Cornell University faculty in 1941, becoming a naturalized United States citizen in 1942, and then moved in 1946 to the University of Chicago where he remained until 1961. A year later he joined the Stanford faculty as professor of chemistry, a position he held until 1986, when he became professor emeritus. Taube served two stints as chair of Stanford's Department of Chemistry—from 1972-74 and 1978-79—and continued doing experimental work at Stanford until his death in 2005. Past Taube lecturers include: Henry Taube Richard H. Holm Kenneth N. Raymond James Collman Harry Gray
Questions: Please contact Patricia Dwyer at 650-723-4770.
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