William A. Klemperer, the Erving Research Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, will visit Hamilton College as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in Chemistry on Dec. 1-2. In addition to visiting informally with faculty and students, discussing research careers with chemistry and physics students and participating in regular classes in the chemistry and physics departments, Klemperer will present two seminars, a general seminar titled "The Chemistry of the Universe" on Thursday, Dec. 1 at 4 p.m. and a chemical physics seminar titled "Making and Breaking Weak Bonds" on Friday, Dec. 2 at 3 p.m. These events are jointly sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa and the Department of Chemistry and are free and open to the public.
Klemperer is credited with helping to found the field of interstellar chemistry. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, he joined Harvard's faculty in 1954 and is now Erving Research Professor of Chemistry. His research interests lie in the areas of molecular structure, energy transfer and intermolecular forces. A member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Chemical Society and the American Physical Society, Klemperer has received many awards. From the American Chemical Society, he has received the Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics, the Debye Award in Physical Chemistry and the Wilson Award in Spectroscopy. He is also a recipient of the Plyler Award, American Physical Society; the Bomen Michelson Award, Coblentz Society; the Faraday Medal, Royal Society of Chemistry; the Wetherill Medal, Franklin Institute; and, most recently, the Ioannes Marcus Marci Medal, Czechoslovak Spectroscopic Society. In 2002 he was made an honorary citizen of the City of Toulouse.
The purpose of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program is to contribute to the intellectual life of the campus by making possible an exchange of ideas between visiting scholars and faculty and students. The program makes 12 or more distinguished scholars available each year who visit 100 colleges with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. Now entering its 50th year, the Visiting Scholars Program has sent 518 Scholars on some 4,500 two-day visits. Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest academic honorary society. It has chapters at 270 colleges and universities, and more than 600,000 members.
