The Department of Chemistry is pleased to welcome Professor Christopher Jarzynski from the University of Maryland as our guest speaker for the 2025–2026 A.R. Gordon Distinguished Lecture Series. Professor Jarzynski will deliver three talks from April 15–17, 2026. All talks will occur at 10:00 AM. Faculty members interested in a one-on-one meeting with Professor Jarzynski are invited to send requests to chem.reception@utoronto.ca.
Talks and Times
April 15, 2026: Scaling Down the Laws of Thermodynamics
April 16, 2026: The Many Guises of the Second Law
April 17, 2026: The Devil and the Details
(all talks will take place at 10 AM.)
Bio: Christopher Jarzynski received his AB degree from Princeton University (1987) and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley (1994), both in Physics. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Nuclear Theory in Seattle, he spent ten years in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, first as a postdoc and then as a technical staff member. In 2006 he moved to the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a Distinguished University Professor with appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the Institute for Physical Science and Technology, and the Department of Physics.
Jarzynski’s research interests include theoretical and computational work at the interface of physics, chemistry and biology, with a particular focus on nonequilibrium phenomena and the application of thermodynamic principles to microscopic systems. In 1996 he derived an equality that relates irreversible work to equilibrium free energy differences, which has been verified in numerous experiments over the past two decades. His recent research focus includes quantum control and thermodynamics, the thermodynamic arrow of time, and the physical implications of information processing. His has received the Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences (2005), the Lars Onsager Prize in theoretical statistical physics (2019), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2020), among other awards.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Professor Laura Kiessling, MIT Department of ChemistryNovartis Professor of Chemistry, Broad Institute
Laura Kiessling earned a BS in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Yale University. After two years at the California Institute of Technology as an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, she joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1991. In 2017, she returned to MIT as the Novartis Professor of Chemistry and Member of the Broad Institute. She is also a Member of the Koch Institute and an Associate Member of the Ragon Institute.
Her interdisciplinary research interests have advanced our understanding of cell surface recognition processes, especially those involving protein-glycan interactions. Laura is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the American Academy of Microbiology, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine. She was the founding Editor–In-Chief of ACS Chemical Biology. Her honors and awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the ACS Gibbs Medal, the Tetrahedron Prize, the Centenary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Ronald Breslow Award for Achievement in Biomimetic Chemistry.
Talks and TimesSeptember 15, 2024: Carbohydrate Recognition in Health and Disease. September 16, 2024: Chemical Probes of Microbial Cell Wall Biosynthesis.
September 17, 2024: Multivalent probes of carbohydrate recognition and signaling.
PROFESSOR OMAR M. YAGHIUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELY
Department of ChemistryBakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet University of California-Berkeley
Omar M. Yaghi received his B.S. degree from State University of New York-Albany (1985), and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois-Urbana (1990) with Professor Walter G. Klemperer. He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University (1990-92) with Professor Richard H. Holm. He has been on the faculties of Arizona State University (1992-98), University of Michigan (1999-2006), and UCLA (2007-2011). He is currently the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, and a Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the Founding Director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute. He is also the Co-Director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, and the California Research Alliance by BASF.
His work encompasses the synthesis, structure and properties of inorganic and organic compounds and the design and construction of new crystalline materials. He is widely known for pioneering several extensive classes of new materials termed metal-organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks. These materials have the highest surface areas known to date, making them useful in clean energy storage and generation. Specifically, applications of his materials are found in the storage and separation of hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide, and in clean water production and delivery, supercapacitor devices, proton and electron conductive systems. 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 early accomplishments in the design and synthesis of new materials have been honored by the Solid-State Chemistry Award of the American Chemical Society and Exxon Co. (1998) and the Sacconi Medal of the Italian Chemical Society (2004). His work on hydrogen storage was recognized by Popular Science Magazine which listed him among the 'Brilliant 10' scientists and engineers in USA (2006), and the US Department of Energy Hydrogen Program Award for outstanding contributions to hydrogen storage (2007). He was the sole recipient of the Materials Research Society Medal for pioneering work in the theory, design, synthesis and applications of metal-organic frameworks and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for the best paper published in Science (2007).
He published over 250 articles, which have received an average of over 300 citations per paper. He is among the top five most highly cited chemists worldwide. In 2025, after speaking at the U of T Department of Chemistry, he was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Talks and TimesMay 13, 2024 10am: Harvesting Water from Desert Air. May 14, 2024 10am: Organic Chemistry for solving the Climate Problem, Fast!
May 15, 2024 10am: Molecular Weaving.
2022-23 Elizabeth (Lisa) Hall
2018-19 H. Park
2017-18 D. Blackmond
2016-17 K. Müllen
2015-16 M. Ratner
2014-15 A. R. Ravishankara
2013-14 J. Clardy
2012-13 J. V. Sweedler
2011-12 D. Nocera
2010-11 R. van Grondelle
2009-10 S. V. Ley
2008-09 R. N. Zare
2007-08 R. Grubbs
2006-07 B. Feringa
2005-06 W.E. Moerner
2004-05 R. R. Schrock
2003-04 M. R. Hoffmann
2002-03 R. Bergman
2001-02 R. Hochstrasser
2000-01 J-M. Lehn
1999-00 M. T. Reetz
1998-99 C. Lineberger
1997-98 G. Whitesides
1996-97 A. J. Kirby
1995-96 L. Brus
1994-95 F. Diederich
1993-94 S. J. Lippard
1992-93 P. G. de Gennes
1991-92 T. J. Marks
1990-91 J. R. Knowles
1989-90 A. Pines
1988-89 D. F. Shriver
1987-88 G. Stork
1986-87 M. Karplus
1985-86 S. Otsuka
1984-85 W. P. Jencks
1983-84 G. C. Pimentel
1982-83 M. L. H. Green
1981-82 R. U. Lemieux
1980-81 R. B. Bernstein
1979-80 G. Wilke
1978-79 J. A. Berson
1977-78 S. A. Rice
1976-77 F. G. A. Stone
1975-76 J. M. Lehn
1974-75 A. D. Buckingham
1973-74 H. B. Gray
1972-73 R. C. D. Breslow
1971-72 D. R. Herschbach
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About the A.R. Gordon Lecture Series
It is fitting that the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Department of Chemistry should bear the name of one of its most distinguished graduates and faculty members, Andrew Robertson Gordon (1896-1967).
As a teacher, A.R. Gordon’s greatest delight was to guide his students through the rigours of Gibbsian thermodynamics, and in this sense, he was a follower of his mentor, Lash Miller. As a researcher, he was a pioneer in quantum chemistry, one of the first to appreciate the chemical significance of the new quantum theory. In 1932, he published the first quantum statistical calculations ever made on a molecule with more than two atoms. While he was pursuing his own theoretical work in statistical mechanics, the work conducted in his laboratory on the properties of electrolytes was also gaining fame. His elegant work on diffusion coefficients, conductivities, transference numbers and activity coefficients have played an important role in testing and elaborating modern theories of electrolytic solutions.
In 1944, A.R. Gordon became the first head of the Department of Chemistry to be chosen from its staff since its inception some hundred years earlier. He made a number of key appointments which set the stage for the kind of department it is today. Over the years he accepted many other positions of responsibility such as Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Member of the National Research Council and the Defense Research Board, Director of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, and Vice-President of the American Association of Graduate Schools. However, he always remained loyal to this Department where his high standards in both teaching and research have had a lasting effect.