Robert W. Vaughan Lectureship in Chemical Engineering
The yearly special lectures honoring Robert W. Vaughan recognize outstanding research and are held during the winter or spring quarters.
Robert W. Vaughan was at the center of developments of high-resolution, solid-state NMR techniques at the time of his untimely death in 1979. At that time, Dr. Vaughan was very early into his career. His research has contributed much to our understanding of hydrogen-bonding in organic and inorganic solids, chemical bonding in metallic hydrides and metal carbonyl clusters, motion and structure in polymers, and motion and structure of surface hydroxyl groups on oxide catalysts.
The Vaughan Lectures in Chemical Engineering are made possible by the Robert W. Vaughan memorial fund established by the friends and associates of Robert Vaughan. The objective of the Vaughan Lectureship is to honor distinguished young scientists in any of the fields of Chemical Engineering, Chemical Physics or Applied Physics.
Our 2026 Vaughan Lecturer is Yifan Dai of Washington University in St. Louis.
Past Speakers
| Name | Institution | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Yifan Dai | Washington University | 2026 |
| Markita Landry | University of California, Berkeley | 2025 |
| Kevin Dorfman | University of Minnesota | 2024 |
| Elizabeth Nance | University of Washington | 2023 |
| Bryan D. McCloskey | University of California, Berkeley | 2022 |
| Nga Lee (Sally) Ng | Georgia Institute of Technology | 2021 |
| Chang C. Liu | University of Irvine, California | 2019 |
| Clifford Brangwynne | Princeton University | 2018 |
| Todd Squires | University of California, Santa Barbara | 2017 |
| Michael Strano | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 2016 |
| Yi Tang | University of California, Los Angeles | 2015 |
| Athanasios Nenes | Georgia Institute of Technology | 2014 |
| Michael Gordon | University of California, Santa Barbara | 2013 |
| Rachel Segalman | University of California, Berkeley | 2012 |
| Shekhar Garde | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy | 2011 |
| Christopher W. Jones | Georgia Institute of Technology | 2010 |
| Christopher A. Voigt | University of California, San Francisco | 2009 |
| David V. Schaffer | University of California, Berkeley | 2008 |
| Michael W. Deem | Rice University | 2007 |
| Michael Tsapatsis | University of Minnesota | 2006 |
| Roger T. Bonnecaze | University of Texas at Austin | 2005 |
| Spyros N. Pandis | Carnegie Mellon University | 2004 |
| Joan F. Brennecke | University of Notre Dame | 2003 |
| Daniel A. Hammer | University of Pennsylvania | 2002 |
| Nicholas L. Abbott | University of Wisconsin at Madison | 2001 |
| Arup K. Chakraborty | University of California, Berkeley | 2000 |
| George Georgiou | University of Texas at Austin | 1999 |
| Norman J. Wagner | University of Delaware | 1998 |
| Chaitan S. Khosla | Stanford University | 1997 |
| Thomas F. Kuech | University of Wisconsin at Madison | 1996 |
| Frank S. Bates | University of Minnesota | 1995 |
| Doros N. Theodorou | University of California, Berkeley | 1994 |
| Charles F. Zukoski IV | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | 1993 |
| Pablo Debenedetti | Princeton University | 1992 |
| Sangtae Kim, | University of Wisconsin | 1991 |
| Mark Davis | Virginia Polytechnic Institute | 1990 |
| T. Michael Duncan | AT&T Bell Labs | 1989 |
| Robert A. Brown | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 1987 |
| Ignacio Grossmann | Carnegie Mellon University | 1986 |
| Matthew Tirrell | University of Minnesota | 1985 |
| Robert E. Cohen | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 1984 |
| Manfred Morari | University of Wisconsin | 1983 |
| Alkiviades C. Payatakes | University of Houston | 1982 |
| Alexander Pines | University of California, Berkeley | 1981 |