Whitmore Lecture on Chemistry Education and Public Policy on June 7

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – John Warner, president and CEO of The Technology Greenhouse and co-founder of the field of green chemistry, will deliver the fifth quadrennial Whitmore Lecture on Chemistry Education and Public Policy on Friday at 4:30 p.m., June 7 at the 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park campus. The lecture, titled “Green Chemistry: The Missing Pieces,” is free and open to the public.

Warner’s lecture describes the history of green chemistry, a field of science focused on reducing or eliminating the use of hazardous materials during the design of a materials process. He will also discuss the opportunities for the next generation of materials designers to create a safer and more sustainable future.

After Warner received his PhD in chemistry from Princeton University in 1988, he worked in research and development at Polaroid Corporation, which then specialized in instant film and cameras but now focuses on consumer electronics. Ten years later, he returned to academia at the University of Massachusetts, where he was a professor of chemistry and plastics engineering, and from 2001 to 2003 he was the head of the chemistry department. It was there that he founded the world’s first PhD program in Green Chemistry. In 2004, Warner moved to the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, where he developed and led the Center for Green Chemistry. He left academia in 2007 to found the Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, a nonprofit organization dedicated to green chemistry education.

As an industrial chemist, Warner holds over 350 patents and has worked with hundreds of companies around the world. In the academic community, he has over 120 publications in the field of synthesis methodology, non-covalent derivatization, polymer photochemistry, metal oxide semiconductors and green chemistry. His inventions led to the creation of many companies in photovoltaics, neurochemistry, building materials, water harvesting and cosmetics.

Warner’s work has been widely recognized with numerous awards and honors, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from the U.S. National Science Foundation in 2004, the Environmental Merit Award from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2011, the American Chemical Society Fellows Award in 2011 and the Perkin Medal from the Chemical Heritage Foundation in 2014. In 2016, he was named a Lemelson Invention Ambassador by the Lemelson Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

About the lecture

The Frank Whitmore Lecture on Chemical Education and Public Policy honors Frank C. Whitmore, dean of the then Penn State College of Chemistry and Physics from 1929 until his death in 1947, for his contributions as a teacher, educator and chemistry creators, chemical education policy and curriculum reform. The lecture recognizes Whitmore’s service to the American Chemical Society, which began at the Society’s Central Pennsylvania Section and culminated with his election as president of the American Chemical Society in 1938. For ten years, Whitmore was the de facto public spokesman for chemistry and one of three chemists who coordinated the United States organic chemistry war effort during World War II.