Past Robbins Lectures

Year Speaker Lecture
2020 Geraldine Richmond The Importance of Science in the Future of a Healthy Planet
2019 Allison Campbell Science in Service to our Nation: Unlocking the Mystery of the Department of Energy National Laboratories
2018 Paul Reider Chemistry in Service to Society: Making Drugs for People, Not Profits
2017 JoAnne Stubbe The Secrets of Biological Catalysts Revealed with Chemical and Spectroscopic Methods
2016 W.E. Moerner Single Molecules as Nanoscale Probes of Our World
2015 Jack Szostak The Origins of Cellular Life
2014 Robert Langer Biomaterials and How They Will Change Our Lives
2013 Susan Solomon Exploring Our Atmosphere's Climate and Chemistry
2011 J. Andrew McCammon Computer-Aided Biophysics and Drug Discovery: From the Molecule to the Cell
2010 Peter Agre Life on the River of Science
2009 Jean-Marie Lehn Perspectives in Chemistry: From Supramolecular Chemistry Towards Adaptive Chemistry
2009 Jennifer Doudna Chemistry and the RNA World
2008 Professor Sir Harold Kroto FRS Science and Scientific Philosophy in the 21st Century
2007 Robert H. Grubbs New Molecules, Materials, and Opportunities
2006 George M. Whitesides Science at the Interface!
2005 Harry B. Gray The Currents of Life: Electron Flow Through Biological Molecules
2004 Kurt Wuthrich NMR Eyes on the Molecules of Life
2003 K. Barry Sharpless Finding Something New and Useful
2002 Ahmed H. Zewail Seeing Beyond Our Vision
2000 Paul S. Anderson Understanding Drug Discovery
1999 George A. Olah Hydrocarbons and their Chemistry
1998 Richard R. Ernst Exploring Nature by NMR
1997 Stuart L. Schreiber Chemical Genetics
1996 Sherwood Rowland The Chemistry of Earth's Atmosphere
1995 Richard N. Zare Shedding Light on Chemistry
1994 Thomas R. Cech RNA Catalysis
1993 Heinrich Rohrer Science for our Future
1992 Donald Cram Molecular Recognition in Complexation
1991 Gertrude Elion Chemotherapy - The Search of Selectivity
1990 Yuan Lee Chemical Reaction Dynamics
1989 Jeremy Knowles Enzymes
1988 Joseph Goldstein & Michael Brown Revelations from Biochemistry and Human Genetics
1987 Herbert Brown Boron in Organic Synthesis
1986 Roald Hoffman Bridging Organic and Inorganic Chemistry
1985 Gerald Edelman Sciences of Recognition
1984 Gabor Somorjai Surface Science of Catalysis
1983 Paul Berg Eucaryotic Gene Expression
1982 Sydney Brenner Genetics of the Nervous System
1981 Christian Anfinsen Structure and Function of Proteins
1980 Rosalyn Yalow Radioimmunoassay
1979 Max Perutz Hemoglobin
1978 William Lipscomb Structure and Mechanisms of Enzymes
1977 David Baltimore Molecular Genetics
1976 George Porter Rapid Kinetics
1975 Julius Axelrod Neurotransmitters
1974 Gerald Edelman Molecular Immunology
1973 Efraim Racker Electron Transport Coupled Phosphorylation
1972 Arthur Kornberg DVA and Membrane Biochemistry
1971 George Wald Vision
1970 Manfred Eigen Dynamics of Biological Macromolecules
1969 Jacques Monod Molecular Biology and the Kingdom of Ideas
1968 John Kendrew The Structure of Proteins
1967 Marshall Nirenberg Deciphering the Genetic Code
1966 Linus Pauling The Structure of the Nucleus
1965 Francis Crick The Structure of DNA
1964 David Green Mitochondrion and Membrane Systems
1963 Peter Debye The Nature of Molecular Forces
1962 Melvin Calvin Photosynthesis