The aim of the award of "Birch Lecturer" is to provide an attractive mechanism for inviting eminent chemists who are of interest to research groups within the School to spend time with these researchers and play an interactive role in discussions.

The standing of Birch Lecturers is that of eminent chemists at the peak of his/her international career. The accompanying list of former lecturers is testament to the superb quality of honoraries that have visited the Research School, nine of whom are Nobel Laureates.

The program for the Birch Lecturer will normally include the Birch Lecture (suitable for a general chemistry audience), one or two more specialised research seminars, the Birch Dinner, and occasionally an Academy Lecture (suitable for a wider audience that may include government decision makers). The award is normally allocated on an annual basis and the Birch Lecturer will normally spend about one week in the School.

FORMER BIRCH LECTURERS

1981 Professor A Eschenmoser
16 February 1981
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich
Organic Synthesis and the Origin of Natural Products

1982 Professor J A Pople*1998
11 February 1982
Carnegie-Mellon University
Obital Theory, Structure and Reactivity

1983 Professor Henry Taube*1983
21 October 1983
Stanford University
Back Bonding as it Affects Reactivity

1984 Professor Elias J Corey*1990
30 July 1984
Harvard University
Total Synthesis of Biologically Active Molecules

1985 Professor Rudolph A Marcus*1992
2 October 1985
California Institute of Technology
Electron Transfer Reactions: Theory and Experiment

1986 Professor Roald Hoffmann*1981
21 January 1986
Building Bridges between Organic and Inorganic Chemistry

1987 Professor Gilbert Stork
11 March 1987
Columbia University, New York
Radical Cyclisation in Natural Product Synthesis

1988 No lecture

1989 Professor J D Dunitz
1 May 1989
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich
Chemical Reaction Paths from Crystal Structure Data

1990 Professor Ryoji Noyori*2001
1 May 1990
Nagoya University
Asymmetric Catalysis: Science and Opportunities

1991 Professor Jeremy Knowles
5 February 1991
Harvard University
Enzyme Catalysists: Not Different, Just Better

1992 Professor Sir John M Thomas FRS
25 March 1992
Formerly Director, Royal Institution London, Deputy Pro Chancellor, University of Wales
New Catalysts for a Clean Environment

1993 Professor Alex Pines
24 June 1993
University of California and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Some Magnetic Moments

1994 Professor John S Rowlinson
10 May 1994
Oxford University, UK
Entropy and Information

1995 Professor Robert G Bergman
29 May 1995
University of California, Berkeley
Activation of Hydrocarbons with Transition Metal Compounds

1996 Professor Jean-Marie Lehn*1987
1 May 1996
Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg and College de France, Paris
Supramolecular Chemistry: Concepts and Perspectives

1997 Professor Peter Day
29 July 1997
The Royal Institution of Great Britain
What is a Material?

1998 Professor Arthur Kornberg*1959
17 March 1998
Stanford University School of Medicine
Science and Medicine at the Millennium

1999 Professor Hubert Schmidbaur
11 February 1999
Technische Universität München
Gold Chemistry: From Alchemy to Relativity and Back

2000 Professor David A Evans
1 May 2000
Harvard University
Asymmetric Catalysis with Chiral metal Complexes

2002 Professor Peter G Schultz
1 May 2002
Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla
Expanding the Genetic Code

2003 Professor Sir Harry Kroto*1999
26 November 2003
University of Sussex
2010, a NanoSpace Odyssey

2004 Professor Robert H Grubbs*2005
8th September 2004
Victor & Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry, Caltech
Ruthenium-based Catalysts for Olefin Metathesis

2005 Professor Roger Tsien
13 September 2005
University of California, San Diego
Building and breeding molecules to spy on cells and tumors

2006 Professor Michael Graetzel
7 August 2006
Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Switzerland
Light and Energy, Mimicking Natural Photosynthesis

2007 Professor Richard R. Schrock*2005
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Discovery and Development of Alkene and Alkyne Metathesis Reactions

2008 Professor Thomas A. Steitz
Yale University,
Bass Center for Molecular and Structural Biology
The structural basis of the function of the ribosome and its large subunit, a major antibiotic target