Joseph S. Francisco of the University of Pennsylvania will give the 2024 Pulay Lecture, titled "Water in the atmosphere: The molecule that changes everything." The talk will take place from 12:55-1:45 p.m. on Monday, April 22, in the Chemistry Building, room 144. The talk is free and open to the public.

Francisco will give an overview of both experimental and theoretical investigations of water and its effects on gas-phase reactions. His talk will provide an understanding of new fundamental concepts underlying water's effects on reactions in our atmosphere. 

Francisco is the President's Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. From 1983-85, Francisco trained as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge in England, and then returned to MIT as a provost postdoctoral fellow. He was also a visiting associate in planetary science at the California Institute of Technology.

Over his career to date, Francisco has published more than 775 journal articles, written several book chapters and is co-author of a fundamental textbook, Chemical Kinetics and Dynamics, which has been considered a "classic" in the field for about 30 years. He is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Alexander von Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award, the Edward W. Morley Medal from the Cleveland Section of the American Chemical Society, the Philadelphia Section Award of the American Chemical Society Philadelphia Section, Willard Gibbs Medal Award of the American Chemical Society Chicago Section, Theodore William Richards Medal Award by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society and the Centenary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry (London).

Francisco is a fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina.

Francisco is currently the executive editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and he has recently been appointed as a member of the Editorial Board for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Council. He has been a member of the Governing Board of the National Research Council and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was president of the American Chemical Society in 2010.

This lecture series is named for Dr. Peter Pulay. Pulay is the Roger B. Bost Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the U of A. His main contributions are methods and applications of electronic structure theory.

The lecture series was made possible by the generosity of Jamie M. Coffin. Coffin received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the U of A in 1989. His extensive career in high-performance scientific computing and data management has been pivotal in shaping advancements in the industry.