Press Release
For Immediate Release:
February 2, 2006
Nobel Laureate Dudley Herschbach to Speak on NEC’s Free Presidential Lecture Series, February 14
Nobel laureate and Baird Professor of Science at Harvard University Dudley Herschbach will complete the 2005-06 Presidential Lecture Series at New England Conservatory, February 14 at 4:30 p.m. in NEC’s Williams Hall. A member of the Harvard chemistry faculty since 1963 and currently engaged in efforts to improve K-12 science education and public understanding of science, Herschbach will talk on "The Impossible Takes a Little Longer." He will explore the subject of science literacy and its relation to other aspects of human culture, including music.
Now in its fourth year, the Presidential Lecture Series is the brainchild of NEC President Daniel Steiner who invites some of the brightest minds in nonmusical fields to give free public lectures at NEC. The lectures are intended as a gift to all members of the NEC community as well as the general public.
Dudley Herschbach was born in San Jose, California in 1932 and received his B.S. degree in Mathematics (1954) and M.S. in Chemistry (1955) at Stanford University, followed by an A.M. degree in Physics (1956) and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics (1958) at Harvard. After a term as Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard (1957-1959), he was a member of the Chemical Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley (1959-1963), before returning to Harvard as Professor of Chemistry in 1963. He has been the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science since 1976.
He has served as Chairman of the Chemical Physics program (1964-1977) and the Chemistry Department (1977-1980), and was Co-Master with his wife Georgene of Currier House (1981-1986). His teaching includes graduate courses in quantum mechanics, chemical kinetics, molecular spectroscopy, and collision theory, as well as undergraduate courses in physical chemistry and general chemistry for freshmen, his most challenging assignment.
In his work to improve public understanding of science, he serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Science Service, which publishes Science News, and conducts both the Intel Science Talent Search and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Author of over 400 papers, Herschbach is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Chemical Society of Great Britain. His awards include the Pure Chemistry Prize of the American Chemical Society (1965), the Linus Pauling Medal (1978), the Michael Polanyi Medal (1981), the Irving Langmuir Prize of the Americal Physical Society (1983), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1986) jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi, the National Medal of Science (1991), the Jaroslav Heyrovsky Medal (1992), the Sierra Nevada Distinguished Chemist Award (1993), the Kosolapoff Award of the ACS (1994), and the William Walker Prize (1994). He was named by Chemical Engineering News among 75 leading contributors to the chemical enterprise in the past 75 years (1998), and received the Council of Scientific Society President's Award for Support of Science (1999).
For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.