Above: Sir Harry Kroto (image courtesy of www.kroto.info)
Nobel Prize-Winning Chemist to Speak at UCF About Future of Nanoscience
by Chad Binette (cbinette@mail.ucf.edu, 407-823-6312)
ORLANDO, Feb. 22, 2006 -- Sir Harry Kroto, a Florida State University professor who won a Nobel Prize in chemistry 10 years ago, will discuss the future of nanoscience and nanotechnology Friday, Feb. 24, at the University of Central Florida.
Kroto will speak at 10 a.m. in the Cape Florida Ballroom, Room 316, of the University of Central Florida Student Union. His presentation, "Architecture in NanoSpace," is free and open to the public.
Kroto will discuss the challenges of the 21st century in creating large molecules with accurately defined atomic structures and how that could lead to advances such as constructing stronger buildings and developing small supercomputers and more delicate surgical techniques
Kroto, who now teaches in FSU's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996 while he was a professor at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. He won the prize with two Rice University professors for their discovery of fullerenes, new forms of carbon in which the atoms are arranged in closed shells.
Kroto's research at that time focused on microwave spectroscopy, a process that is useful for analyzing gases in space. His other research specialties include astrophysics; analyses of carbon and metal clusters; and fullerene chemistry, nanoscience and nanotechnology. Kroto also gives frequent lectures to students and others interested in chemistry.
Kroto taught at the University of Sussex for 37 years before taking a position at FSU in 2004. Named a Royal Society Research Professor at Sussex in 1991, he won the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Award 10 years later for his efforts to advance public communication in science and technology in the United Kingdom. Kroto was awarded knighthood status in 1996.
Kroto also set up the Vega Science Trust to improve the awareness and understanding of science research by making programming about outstanding scientists available for free on television and on the Internet. Lectures, interviews and children's workshops are among the programs available at http://www.vega.org.uk.
Sponsors of Kroto's presentation at UCF include the Office of Research and Commercialization and the student Materials Research Society. For more information, call 407-882-1119.
| 
Printer Friendly Version of this Article