Nobel-winning scientist to lecture May 9-10 Will examine prize’s ‘creativity, discovery and risk’

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    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Nobel-winning scientist Alan Heeger, who shared the 2000 chemistry prize for the discovery and development of conductive polymers, will speak May 9-10 at the University of Louisville.

    Heeger’s free, public, general-interest talk about “Creativity, Discovery and Risk: Nobel Prizes Past and Future” will begin at 12:30 p.m. May 10 in Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium on the Belknap Campus.

    UofL’s Chemistry Graduate Student Association sponsors the annual distinguished lecturer series with Clariant, a Switzerland-based chemical company with operations in Louisville.

    Heeger, a professor of physics and materials at University of California-Santa Barbara since 1982, won the famous prize with Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa and is considered a pioneer in the field of semiconducting and metallic polymers. Also an Institute of Physics fellow, Heeger has won the American Physical Society’s Buckley Prize for his research in condensed matter physics and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. He has more than 50 patents and has written more than 900 publications.

    His multidisciplinary work has led to several start-up companies, including UNIAX Corp., acquired a decade later by DuPont, and CBrite Inc., Cynvenio and Cytomx Therapeutics.

    Heeger’s more scientifically oriented talk, “Electronic Structure of Semiconducting Polymer Field Effect Transistors,” will begin at 1:30 p.m. May 9, also in Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium.

    For more information, contact Kelsey Sparks at 859-630-3781 or kelsey.sparks@louisville.edu.

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    Judy Hughes
    Judy Hughes is a senior communications and marketing coordinator for UofL’s Office of Communications and Marketing and associate editor of UofL Magazine. She previously worked in news as a writer and editor for a daily newspaper and The Associated Press.