Abstract

Molecular and Synthetic Design for Us and Our Posterity

The research at the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale includes methods to design molecules that are inherently less hazardous and toxic through the use of computational models; the discovery of new molecules and methods that can use renewable biomass as a feedstock, and methods of enabling renewable energy with Earth-abundant catalysts.

While these technologies that will be reviewed are important steps toward making our chemistry more sustainable, this talk will focus on the types of transformations that need to take place on the civilization-wide level. There are trends emerging in the early 21st Century that will inform and largely influence whether or not we as a society move closer to a sustainable world. These megatrends and the role that green chemistry and green engineering must play in forming this future will be presented.

Biography

The Honourable Paul T. Anastas

Professor Paul T. Anastas holds the Teresa and H. John Heinz III chair in Chemistry for the Environment at Yale University. He has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Department of Chemistry, and Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. In addition, Professor Anastas serves as the Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale, and Director of the Sustainability Curriculum, MBA for Executives Program at Yale School of Management. He is widely known as the “Father of Green Chemistry” and is credited with establishing the field of Green Chemistry in 1991 during his time working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where he served as the Chief of the Industrial Chemistry Branch.

He has experience in business (co-founded three companies), the Not-for-Profit sector (co-founded the Green Chemistry Institute), and government having served in the Administrations of the past four U.S. Presidents including serving in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Clinton and Bush Administrations, and as Assistant Administrator of the Office of Research and Development and chief scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama Administration. Professor Anastas has published 13 books on sustainable technology. He has received numerous awards including: The Heinz Award, Rachel Carson Prize, E. O. Wilson Prize, and Emanuel Merck Medal