Kristin Bowman-James, University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kansas, will present the annual Lord Lecture at Allegheny College at 8 p.m. on Monday, March 13, in Ford Memorial Chapel. Her talk, “Serendipity and Surprise in Coordination Chemistry,” is free and open to the public.
After receiving her undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Temple University and completing postdoctoral research at Ohio State University, Bowman-James has spent her academic career at the University of Kansas, becoming the first woman to chair the Department of Chemistry. She was promoted to University Distinguished Professor in 2007. In addition, in 2005, she was appointed director of Kansas EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), a National Science Foundation-funded program advances excellence in science and engineering research and education.
Bowman-James’ research is in the field of supramolecular host-guest chemistry and transition metal coordination chemistry. She is especially recognized for her contributions to the field of anion coordination, for which she received a National Science Foundation Creativity Award in 2006. Bowman-James recently was appointed associate editor of “Coordination Chemistry Reviews,” one of the leading review journals, and she co-edited “Supramolecular Chemistry of Anions and Anion Coordination Chemistry.”
In honor of her achievements, Bowman-James has received the Iota Sigma Pi Award for Professional Excellence, the Kansas Dolph Simons Sr. Award for Research Achievement, the Midwest Regional Award for Diversity, the Midwest Award for Research in Chemistry sponsored by the St. Louis Section of the ACS, and the KU Leading Light Award. She was inducted into the Temple University Gallery of Success in 2004 and was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2010.
The Lord Lecture has been bringing the nation’s most distinguished chemists and scientists to Allegheny annually since 1991 and is made possible through the support of the Thomas Lord Charitable Trust. The fund is closely linked to the Lord Corporation, a major manufacturer of adhesives, rubber chemicals and other products.