Fuel from sunlight, water to be topic of Gettysburg College talk

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GETTYSBURG, Pa. - A California Institute of Technology (Caltech) professor will discuss "Powering the Planet: Fuel from Sunlight and Water" at 8 p.m., April 24, in Gettysburg College's Masters Hall (Mara Auditorium). Harry B. Gray's talk, which is part of a series of lectures funded by the Musselman Endowment for Visiting Scientists, is open to the public free of charge.

Gray is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and founding director of the Beckman Institute at Caltech, where he joined the faculty in 1966. He and his colleagues there have investigated the solar photochemistry of metal complexes, attacked the problem of electron flow through biological molecules, discovered that electrons can tunnel rapidly over long molecular distances through folded polypeptide structures, and constructed photoactive electron tunneling wires to probe deeply buried active sites in enzymes.

Gray has received honors throughout his career including the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan (1986); the Bailar Medal (1984); the Centenary Medal (1985); the Pauling Medal (1986); the Linderstr¿m-Lang Prize (Copenhagen, 1991); the Basolo Medal (1994); the Gibbs Medal (1994); the Chandler Medal (1999); the Harvey Prize (Haifa, 2000); six national awards from the American Chemical Society, including the Priestley Medal (1991); and honorary doctorates from Northwestern, Chicago, Rochester, Florence, Goteborg, Columbia, Pennsylvania and several other universities.

Gray is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Philosophical Society; a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; and the Royal Society of Great Britain. He was California Scientist of the Year in 1988. During 1997-98, he was the George Eastman Professor at the University of Oxford.

Gettysburg College is a highly selective four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences. With approximately 2,400 students, it is located on a 200-acre campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park. The college was founded in 1832.

Issued 4/8/03

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