Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture & Award
In 1990 chemist Glenn Edgar Ullyot endowed a public lecture with the Philadelphia Section of the American Chemical Society. The goal: that this annual lecture would inform the audience of how chemistry, biology, and the sciences in general contribute to the public welfare.
In the years since, esteemed scientists, journalists, government and business leaders, and even Nobel laureates have addressed audiences at this popular lecture. It is presented jointly by the Science History Institute (where the lecture has been held since 1997), the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Saint Joseph’s University, and the Philadelphia Section and Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society.
The Ullyot Lecture & Award includes a Q&A session and the presentation of the Liberty Bowl to the lecturer.
2024 Ullyot Public Affairs Lecturer: Omar Yaghi
Reticular chemistry pioneer Omar Yaghi presented Ultra-Porous Crystals for Carbon and Water Capture on Thursday, November 14, 2024.
Yaghi is the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. His work encompasses the synthesis, structure, and properties of inorganic and organic compounds and the design and construction of new crystalline materials.
Yaghi is widely known for pioneering several extensive classes of new materials: metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs). These materials have the highest surface areas known to date, making them useful for such purposes as hydrogen and methane storage, carbon capture and conversion, water harvesting from desert air, and catalysis. The building-block approach he developed has led to an exponential growth in the creation of new materials having a diversity and multiplicity previously unknown in chemistry. He termed this field reticular chemistry and defines it as “stitching molecular building blocks into extended structures by strong bonds.” His work on MOFs, COFs, and ZIFs led to over 300 published articles, which have received a total of more than 227,000 citations.
Yaghi is the founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, whose mission is to build centers of research in developing countries and provide opportunities for young scholars to discover and learn. He is also the codirector of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute, focusing on the basic science of energy transformation on the molecular level; the California Research Alliance by BASF, supporting joint academia-industry innovations; as well as the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet, which aims to develop cost-efficient, easily deployable versions of two classes of ultra porous materials to help limit and address the impacts of climate change.
He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2019), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022), and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2022). He has also been honored with many awards, including the Sacconi Medal of the Italian Chemical Society (2004), Materials Research Society Medal (2007), American Chemical Society Award in the Chemistry of Materials (2009), Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize (2010), King Faisal International Prize in Science (2015), Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2017), BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences (2017), Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2018), Eni Award for Excellence in Energy (2018), Gregori Aminoff Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2019), August-Wilhelm-von-Hofmann-Denkmünze of the German Chemical Society (2020), Royal Society of Chemistry Sustainable Water Award (2020), Belgium’s International Solvay Chair in Chemistry (2021), VinFuture Prize for Emerging Science and Technology (2021), and the Wilhelm Exner Medal (2023).
Yaghi received his PhD in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University.
Previous Ullyot Public Affairs Lecturers
- Carolyn Bertozzi (2023)
- Frances Arnold (2022)
- Peter Agre (2020)
- Roald Hoffmann (2019)
- Jennifer A. Doudna (2018)
- Marcia McNutt (2017)
- Sir James Fraser Stoddart (2016)
- Bruce Alberts (2015)
- George Whitesides (2014)
- Joe Palca (2013)
- Paul Anastas (2012)
- Michael Christman (2011)
- Susan Solomon (2010)
- Joseph M. DeSimone (2009)
- Bernard Bigot (2008)
- Shirley M. Tilghman (2007)
- Ralph J. Cicerone (2006)
- Marye Anne Fox (2005)
- Phillip A. Sharp (2004)
- Alfred Bader (2003)
- Jacqueline K. Barton (2002)
- Robert S. Langer (2001)
- Mark S. Wrighton (2000)
- George B. Rathmann (1999)
- Earnest W. Deavenport (1998)
- P. Roy Vagelos (1997)
- Harold E. Varmus (1996)
- Carl Djerassi (1995)
- Orlando A. Battista (1994)
- Bassam Z. Shakhashiri (1993)
- Maxine F. Singer (1992)
- Harry B. Gray (1991)
- Mary Lowe Good (1990)
About Our Copresenters
The Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania is composed of a dynamic community of researchers creating and disseminating new knowledge at the forefront of the chemical sciences. As an enabling science, chemistry is at the focal point of every important modern societal challenge. Our faculty and students engage these challenges daily on a local, national, and international scale.
The Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania uses the tools of the humanities and social sciences to study science, technology, medicine, and the environment. Through a broad range of scholarly projects, faculty research examines relations between the technical practice of scientists, engineers, medical researchers, and clinicians and the material, social, political, and cultural context in which those practices occur. Interdisciplinary study, faculty-student interaction, and individual mentoring characterize both the graduate and undergraduate programs.
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Saint Joseph’s University is the home of the chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmaceutical chemistry majors, and the chemistry, biochemistry, and bioinformatics minors. With expertise distributed over all five of chemistry’s primary areas, the faculty engage in diverse, award-winning teaching and research activities that prepare students for such future opportunities as employment in industry, science teaching, and postgraduate training in graduate schools, medical school, and law school.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 150,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals, and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. The Philadelphia Section and Delaware Section are cosponsors of the Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture.
