NOBCChE Outreach Seminar: Professor Robert Gilliard, MIT

About the Seminar

Reflections on my Career: Undergraduate Research, Mentoring, and Diversity

Professor Gilliard will discuss his journey to a career in chemistry, his research, mentoring, and well as his reflections and work on diversity in the physical sciences.

About the Speaker

Prof. Robert J. Gilliard, Jr. is the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prior to joining MIT, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Virginia. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Clemson University where he was an undergraduate researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Rhett C. Smith. He earned his doctorate in chemistry at The University of Georgia with Prof. Gregory H. Robinson. Gilliard was a Merck Postdoctoral Fellow and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow where he completed his studies working jointly at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) with Prof. Hansjörg Grützmacher and at Case Western Reserve University with Prof. John Protasiewicz. He has received several awards and honors. Recent national and international awards include Chemical and Engineering News Talented 12 Scholar, Research Corporation for Science Advancement Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, Organometallics Distinguished Author Award, Beckman Young Investigator Award, Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, Lloyd N. Ferguson Award for Excellence in Research, and the 2023 ACS Harry Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry. He also serves on the editorial advisory board for Chemical Communications, Chem Catalysis, Inorganic Chemistry, and Angewandte Chemie.

Host: Ashley Saunders