Named Lectureships
IMPACT Lecture Series
The IMPACT Lecture Series is a student-led invited lecture program attracting notable speakers from diverse areas of chemistry and biochemistry. Graduate students manage the program from speaker selection and invitation all the way through hosting the speaker and coordinating the visit. This series, funded by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, allows students a unique opportunity both to invite speakers whose research is of particular interest and to have more time with a speaker to discuss research or professional development.
The Freeman Lectureships
The Freeman Lecture is sponsored by the Jeremiah P. Freeman Organic Synthesis Lectureship Endowment, with support from Notre Dame's Nieuwland Lectures, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the College of Science. Freeman received his bachelor's degree in 1950 from the University of Notre Dame and earned masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois in 1951 and 1953, respectively. He began his career with the chemistry group at the Redstone Arsenal Research Division of the Rohm and Haas Company before returning to Notre Dame in 1964 to join the organic chemistry faculty. While at Notre Dame, Freeman served as assistant chair then chair of the department from 1965 to 1979 and as associate dean of the College of Science from 1988 to 1991. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow from 1966 to 1968, and he served as secretary-treasurer, and later chair, of the Organic Division of the American Chemical Society from 1969 to 1975. He was elected secretary of Organic Synthesis Inc. in 1979 and served in that capacity until 2004. During that time, he edited four of the publication's five-year collective volumes and assembled a cumulative index of the first eight volumes. Freeman's research interests were focused on the area of organic nitrogen compounds, particularly those containing nitrogen in intermediate oxidation states, such as nitrones, nitrimines, and nitroso compounds.
The Nieuwland Lectureships
The Nieuwland Lectureships were established in 1943 by Rev. J. Hugh O'Donnell, C.S.C., then President of the University of Notre Dame, as a permanent memorial to the late Rev. Julius A. Nieuwland, C.S.C. Rev. Nieuwland was born in Hansbeke, Belgium in 1878. He earned an A.B. at the University of Notre Dame in 1899 and a Ph.D. in chemistry at Catholic University, Washington, D.C. in 1904. He joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame in 1904, and he was a professor of organic chemistry from 1918 until his death in 1936.
Nieuwland's career as a chemist was devoted largely to the study of acetylene and its reactions. He developed the basic chemistry which led to the synthesis of neoprene, the first practically useful synthetic chemistry elastomer, and he discovered and explored a variety of catalytic processes in acetylene chemistry. Rev. Nieuwland was awarded the Nichols Medal of the New York Section of the American Chemical Society in 1935. He also received many other honors and distinctions.
The Reilly Lectureships
In 1945, Peter C. Reilly endowed the Peter C. Reilly Science Fund at the University of Notre Dame. This funds the Reilly Lectureships in both Chemistry and Biochemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering as well as fellowships for students in both departments. Over 300 distinguished scientists from the United States and abroad have occupied the Peter C. Reilly lectureship in chemistry since 1948.
Peter C. Reilly was born in Providence, RI in 1869, the son of Irish immigrants. He attended LaSalle Academy in Providence and entered the coal-tar business in 1886. In 1900, he organized his own coal-tar distilling company in Indianapolis, IN, where he had moved in 1895. This company became known as the Reilly Tar and Chemical Corporation. Mr. Reilly was a director or trustee of numerous commercial, educational, and charitable organizations. He was a member of the State Advisory Council of the Indiana University Medical Center and a Lay Trustee of the University of Notre Dame, which conferred the honorary LL.D. degree on him in 1939. Mr. Reilly died in Indianapolis in 1952.