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Beckman Lecture

The Beckman Lecture series was established by Professor Peter Dervan in 1985 to honor Dr. Arnold Orville Beckman, Chairman Emeritus of the Caltech Board of Trustees, founder and president of Beckman Instruments, Inc., and nationally recognized inventor, scientist, philanthropist, and business leader. The candidate is selected for their excellence in organic chemistry defined in the broadest sense (synthetic, physical organic, chem biology, organic polymers/materials), by vote of the organic and inorganic faculty of Caltech.
May 13, 2026 4:00 pm

Beckman Lecture

Milan Mrksich, Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry, School of Engineering, Northwestern University,
Past Beckman Lecture Speakers
Name Institution Date
E. J. Corey Harvard University March 1, 1985
Jerrold Meinwald Cornell University April 25, 1986
Ronald Breslow Columbia University May 5, 1987
Donald Cram University of California, Los Angeles May 3, 1988
Samuel Danishefsky Yale University January 11, 1990
Jean-Marie Lehn Louis Pasteur University October 26, 1990
Gilbert Stork Columbia University December 9, 1992
Albert Eschenmoser Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) May 25, 1993
Barry Sharpless The Scripps Research Institute May 11, 1994
Peter Schultz University of California, Berkeley May 3, 1995
Thomas Cech University of Colorado, Boulder April 24, 1996
Robert Bergman University of California, Berkeley March 10, 1997
David Evans Harvard University April 22, 1998
Eric Jacobsen Harvard University January 19, 2000
Larry Overman University of California, Irvine May 31, 2001
Ryoji Noyori Nagoya University, Nagoya May 3, 2002
Stuart Schreiber Harvard University May 7, 2003
Laura Kiessling University of Wisconsin May 26, 2004
Chi-Huey Wong Scripps Research Institute May 18, 2005
Andrew Myers Harvard University May 17, 2006
Stephen Buchwald Stephen Buchwald March 14, 2007
Gregory Fu Massachusetts Institute of Technology January 16, 2008
Carolyn Bertozzi University of California, Berkeley February 18, 2009
Roger Y. Tsien University of California, San Diego April 14, 2010
Erick M. Carreira Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) March 23, 2011
Kevan M. Shokat University of California, San Francisco January 25, 2012
David W. C. MacMillan Princeton University February 20, 2013
Dale L. Boger The Scripps Research Institute February 26, 2014
K. C. Nicolaou Rice University March 4, 2015
Benjamin Cravatt The Scripps Research Institute March 9, 2016
Scott J. Miller Yale University February 22, 2017
Melanie S. Sanford University of Michigan October 17, 2018
Geoffrey Coates Cornell University March 6, 2019
Jeffrey Moore University of Illinois May 3, 2023
Veronique Gourverneur University of Oxford June 5, 2024