by Joseph DuChene
The Chemistry Department was honored to host so many talented scientists and distinguished speakers for the 2025-2026 UMass Amherst Department of Chemistry seminar series.
In October 2025, Professor Alison Fout from Texas A&M gave the annual Marvin D. Rausch Lecture in Organometallic Chemistry. Prof. Fout is the Davidson Chair in Science and the Associate Head for Graduate Studies, where her group develops inorganic transition-metal complexes capable of mediating unusual transformations for a variety of applications in biology, energy, and the environment. At UMass, she presented her group’s recent efforts to use ligand design for enabling multi-electron reactivity with iron and cobalt catalysts. Systematic modifications to the ligand environment enabled non-destructive hyperpolarization agents for MRI and NMR applications with Earth-abundant elements.
In November 2025, Professor Catherine Murphy from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign gave the annual William E. Mahoney Seminar. Professor Murphy is the Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry and the Head of the Department. She is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Murphy gave an compelling presentation about the role of surface chemistry in controlling the synthesis of anisotropic gold nanoparticles, their resultant properties, and their eventual fate in the environment. As one of the pioneers of nanomaterials synthesis, she gave an engaging history of the field, her vision for the future, and impacts on society.
In March of 2026, Professor Susan Marqusee from University of California Berkeley was hosted by Mount Holyoke College to give the Five College Lecture. Professor Marqusee is the Distinguished Chair and Professor of Molecular & Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry, and she leads the Directorate of Biological Sciences at NSF, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Marqusee gave talks at Mount Holyoke College, UMass Amherst, and Amherst College, detailing her lab’s efforts to understand how thermodynamics impacts the structural dynamics of protein folding, with a specific emphasis on coronavirus.
In April of 2026, Professor Brent Sumerlin from the University of Florida gave the annual Honorary Stein Seminar in Polymer Science. Professor Summerlin is the George Bergen Butler Professor of Chemistry, the Director of the Butler Polymer Research Laboratory and the Director of the Center for Macromolecular Science & Engineering at the University of Florida. Professor Summerlin’s research involves the design and study of polymers with precise structures and properties. His group develops new methods for controlled polymerization as well as depolymerization to improve polymer recycling and chemical sustainability. He gave an exciting presentation detailing his lab’s work using well-defined, ultra-high molecular weight polymers for various applications rang
ing from multifunctional materials to mucosal medicine.
We also hosted many great scientists in the field of chemistry over the past year, including Prof. Jacob Olshansky (Amherst College), Prof. Carlos Casteñada (Syracuse University), Prof. Rachid Skouta (UMass Amherst), Prof. Francis Zamborini (University of Louisville), Prof. Michele Di Piero (Northeastern University), Prof. Marcus Ruscetti (UMass-Chan Medical School), Prof. Feng Liu (Emory University), Prof. Julia Chan (Baylor University), Prof. Craig Martin (UMass Amherst), Prof. Jennifer Heemstra (Washington University St. Louis), Prof. David Margulies (Weizmann Institute of Science), Prof. Kevin Clark (Tufts), Prof. Jie He (UConn), Prof. Benjamin Gewurz (Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School), Prof. Michael Freeman (University of Minnesota), Prof. Christopher Hendon (University of Oregon), Prof. Sara Skrabalak (Indiana University), Prof. Elisa Franco (UCLA), Prof. Zhongyue Yang (Vanderbilt University), Prof. Chad Rienstra (UW-Madison), and Prof. Andrej Lupták (UC Irvine).
The Chemistry Department is very grateful for the generous contributions of our alumni and corporate sponsors, who make the success of the seminar program possible. More information about upcoming seminars and events can be found at www.chem.umass.edu/events-seminars/.