Chemist Geraldine Richmond to give 2 talks while on campus
Professor Geraldine Richmond of the University of Oregon will visit Skidmore College March 9 to participate in the College's Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series.
Richmond will present two talks while on campus. The first, scheduled at 5 p.m. in the Payne Room of the Tang Teaching Museum, is titled "Potholes and Speed Bumps on the Road to Diversity in Science and Engineering." A reception will follow the talk, which is open to the college community.
Richmond will consider the manyfactors contributing to the difficulty that academic institutions are having in achieving gender and racial diversity in their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) departments. Her presentation will summarize the recent research efforts of COACh that identify these difficulties, strategies that departments are employing to increase their diversity, and the work of COACh to assist them in these efforts.
She founded and chairs COACh (Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists), an organization that assists in the advancement of women faculty in the sciences.
The second talk will begin at 7 p.m., again in the Payne room at the Tang, with a pre-lecture reception at 6 p.m. The public is welcome at this presentation, titled "At the Water's Edge: Understanding Environmentally Important Processes at Aqueous Surfaces."
Explains Richmond in her abstract, "...the surface of water is involved in some of most important reactions in our atmosphere. The surface can sculpt the landscape as it flows past rocks and soils, it can break down the strongest of metals. It is a surface across which essential nutrients and ions are constantly exchanged in life-sustaining processes in our bodies. In our laboratory we study environmentally important processes at aqueous surfaces using laser-based spectroscopic techniques and molecular dynamics simulations. I will focus my talk on our recent studies of the intriguing behavior of water surfaces when in contact with molecules of importance in our environment."
The Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oregon, Richmond received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Kansas State University (1975) and a Ph.D. in chemical physics at the University of California, Berkeley (1980). Her research focuses on using nonlinear optical spectroscopy and computational methods to understand the chemistry that occurs at complex surfaces and interfaces that have relevance to important problems in energy production, environmental remediation, atmospheric chemistry and biomolecular surfaces. Over 160 publications have resulted from this research.
Her recent awards for scientific accomplishments include the American Chemical Society Garvan Medal (1996), the Oregon Scientist of the Year by the Oregon Academy of Science (2001), the Spectrochemical Analysis Award of the American Chemical Society (2002), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), and the Bomem-Michaelson Award (2008). She is a fellow of the American Physical Society (1993), the American Association of the Advancement of Science (2004), the Association of Women in Science (2008), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006).
Richmond has also played an important role in setting the national scientific agenda through her service on many science boards and advisory panels. Most recent appointments include associate editor of Annual Reviews of Physical Chemistry (2006-2008), chair of the Science Advisory Committee of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (2006-2008), chair of the Chemistry Section, Association for the Advancement of Science (2009-2010), chair of the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Board of the Department of Energy (1998-2003), and as a gubernatorial appointee to the State of Oregon Board of Higher Education, where she served as a member, vice president and interim president over her seven-year term (1999-2006). She has testified on science issues before committees in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Oregon House of Representatives.
