The first annual Edinburgh Instruments’ Lectureship in Photochemistry and Photophysics at Duke University was held on 29 April 2016, with great success. The plenary speaker, Professor Richard Eisenberg of the University of Rochester, presented his talk, titled ‘Fuel from Water: The Light-Driven Generation of Hydrogen.’ The lecture was attended by approximately 100 faculty, students, and researchers from Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University. A post-lecture ‘meet-the-speaker’ event allowed attendees to interact and chat with the speaker and each other over pizza and snacks.
The annually held event, sponsored by Edinburgh Instruments and Duke University, and organised by Professor Michael Therien, looks to become the leading annual photochemistry lecture series in the United States and is open to the public to attend. The 2017 speaker for the event will be Professor Harry Gray, from California Institute of Technology.