Green chemistry in a high-tech society:
leading scientist visits campus

RELEASED: March 29, 2007

DANVILLE, KY—Centre College is presenting a public lecture by Terry Collins, Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Institute for Green Oxidation Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. The lecture, titled "Green Chemistry: Sustaining a High Technology Civilization," will take place on April 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Vahlkamp Theater on campus.

Collins will give a brief history of how hazardous chemicals have made their way into the economy and how those hazards are understood today. He will talk about the basics of toxicity and ecotoxicity, as well as the difficulties encountered in regulating the chemical industry and the need to develop economical green chemical technologies to replace polluting ones.

"We're very pleased and extremely fortunate to have Terry Collins visit Centre," says Joe Workman, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Centre. "In light of the environmental challenges facing the United States and the world, his message of using green chemistry to overcome some of those challenges is timely and crucial."

Collins is the winner of the 1999 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. He is internationally known for his efforts to promote green chemistry as an important solution to maintaining a sustainable high technology civilization. A native of New Zealand, Collins has been a professor in the chemistry department at Carnegie Mellon University since 1987.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

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