University of St Andrews

Sir James Fraser Stoddart FRS FRSE FRSC is a Scottish-born chemist who is Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures, such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilising molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognised by numerous awards including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science; he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage in 2016 for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.

The Irvine lectures were founded in 1954 by St Salvator’s College Council in memory of Sir James Colquhoun Irvine, Principal of the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard, 1921-52. Originally, the Lecturer was appointed annually by the College Council to deliver one lecture in St Salvator’s College on a subject of interest and importance to the students of more than one department or faculty. Since its inception, the remit has been expanded.

There will be a reception in Lower College Hall, St Salvator’s Quad, after the lecture, to which all attendees are invited.

Presented by: Sir Fraser Stoddart.