George A. Abbott Lectureship

The Abbott Lectureship is designed to bring outstanding chemists to our department and to the area, to provide an opportunity for personal interaction with area students, practicing chemists, and faculty.

We have been fortunate to have some of the most outstanding chemists in the country present these endowed lectures, including Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry.

The George A. Abbott Lectureship was established by gifts from the University of North Dakota Alumni.

2026 Abbott Chemistry Lectures

Dr. Xiaosong Li, Larry R. Dalton Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Senior Associate Dean for Research
University of Washington

Watching Electrons Dance: From Time-Dependent Quantum Theory to Spectroscopy

Thursday, April 9 | 7 p.m. | Abbott Hall 101

Many important chemical and physical processes happen on extremely short timescales. These ultrafast electron motions play a central role in technologies such as solar energy conversion, photocatalysis, radiation chemistry, and advanced spectroscopy. To understand and eventually control these processes, scientists must be able to describe how electrons move and interact with one another, with atomic nuclei, and with external influences such as light, magnetic fields, and radiation.

Research in the Li group aims to develop new theoretical models and computer simulations that make it possible to study these rapid, complex electronic motions in realistic chemical systems. These methods are designed to work across a wide range of conditions, from everyday chemical environments to extreme regimes where relativistic effects become important.

In this talk, I will highlight recent progress in our group’s development of time-dependent electronic structure theories and advanced simulation tools. I will also present applications of these methods to important chemical phenomena, including how molecules absorb X-rays, how protons move after electronic excitation, and how materials respond to magnetic and optical fields. Together, these advances help deepen our understanding of ultrafast chemistry and support the design of next-generation energy and spectroscopy technologies.

Relativistic Effects in Chemistry

Friday, April 10 | 12:20 p.m. | Abbott Hall 138

The field of computational chemical science faces a growing demand for accurate electronic structure methods that extend beyond the traditional framework of the Schrödinger equation. This need is driven by molecular and material systems with complex electronic structures and photophysical properties that defy prediction by simple periodic trends. Recent advances in relativistic electronic structure theory have provided unprecedented accuracy in describing energetic ordering, chemical reactivity, and spectroscopic features, particularly for complexes containing late-row transition metals, rare earth, and heavy elements. This presentation offers a pedagogical overview of the evolution and current state of relativistic electronic structure theory, illustrated with practical examples such as intersystem crossing dynamics, chiral-induced spin selectivity, and M-edge spectra of heavy-element complexes.

About Dr. Xiaosong Li

Dr. Xiaosong Li is the Larry R. Dalton Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Senior Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Wayne State University in 2003, followed by postdoctoral research at Yale University before joining the University of Washington in 2005. In addition to his faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering, he is a Lab Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

An internationally recognized leader in time-dependent quantum theory and relativistic electronic structure methods, Dr. Li's research spans physics, chemistry, materials science, mathematics, and computer science. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and developed widely used computational software.

Dr. Li's contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including a Sloan Research Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the ACS Jack Simons Award in Theoretical Physical Chemistry, and the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.

Previous Abbott Lectures

• 2025 Dr. Julia Laskin, Professor of Analytical Chemistry, Purdue University
• 2024 Dr. Paul J. Chirik, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry, Princeton University
• 2023 Dr. Phil S. Baran, Professor, Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute
• 2022 Dr. Angela K. Wilson, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University and 2022 President of the American Chemical Society
• 2021 Dr. X. Chris Le, University of Alberta
• 2019 Dr. Christopher Cummins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 2018 Dr. Thomas R. Hoye, University of Minnesota
• 2017 Dr. Jonathan V. Sweedler, University of Illinois, Urbana
• 2016 Dr. David Yarkony, John Hopkins University
• 2015 Dr. Donald J. Darensbourg, Texas A&M University
• 2014 Dr. Bruce Lipshutz, University of California, Santa Barbara
• 2013 Dr. Debra R. Rolison, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
• 2012 Dr. Michael Ward, Molecular Design Institute, New York University
• 2011 Dr. Thomas J. Meyer. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• 2010 Dr. Michael P. Doyle, University of Maryland
• 2009 Dr. Richard N. Zare, Stanford University
• 2008 Dr. Richard J. Saykally, University of California, Berkeley
• 2007 Dr. Catherine Fensealu, University of Maryland
• 2006 Dr. Malcolm Chisholm, Ohio State University
• 2005 Dr. Barry K Carpenter, Cornell University
• 2004 Dr. William Miller, University of California – Berkeley
• 2003 Dr. Victor J. Hruby, University of Arizona
• 2002 Dr. Samuel H. Gellman, University of Wisconsin
• 2001 Dr. Paul A. Wender, Stanford University
• 2000 Dr. Alexander Pines, University of California-Berkeley
• 1999 Dr. Tobin J. Marks, Northwestern University
• 1997 Dr. Henry F. Schaefer, III , University of Georgia
• 1995 Dr. Edward Yeung, Iowa State University
• 1994 Dr. Kendall N. Houk, University of California, LA
• 1992 Dr. Marye Anne Fox, University of Texas at Austin
• 1991 Dr. Andrew Streitwieser, Univ. of California-Berkeley
• 1990 Dr. Robert H. Grubbs, California Institute of Technology
• 1989 Dr. Peter B. Dervan, California Institute of Technology
• 1988 Dr. Mark S. Wrighton, Mass. Institute of Technology
• 1987 Dr. William J. Bailey, University of Maryland
• 1986 Dr. Allen J. Bard, University of Texas at Austin
• 1985 Dr. Harry B. Gray, California Institute of Technology
• 1984 Dr. Gabor A. Somorjai, University of California-Berkeley
• 1983 Dr. Melvin Calvin, University of California-Berkeley
• 1982 Dr. Koji Nakanishi, Columbia University
• 1981 Dr. Dietmar Seyferth, Mass. Institute of Technology
• 1980 Dr. Robert E. Sievers, University of Colorado
• 1979 Dr. Leo A. Paquette, Ohio State University
• 1978 Dr. H.C. Brown, Purdue University
• 1977 Dr. Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University
• 1976 Dr. Hans H. Jaffe, University of Cincinnati
• 1975 Dr. Daryle H. Busch, Ohio State University
• 1974 Dr. Fred McLafferty, Cornell University
• 1973 Dr. Cheves Walling, University of Utah
• 1972 Dr. John L. Margrave, Rice University
• 1971 Dr. Arnold C. Wahl, Argonne Laboratory
• 1970 Dr. Ronald Breslow, Columbia University
• 1969 Dr. David N. Hume, Mass. Institute of Technology
• 1968 Dr. Edward L. King, University of Colorado
• 1967 Dr. Harold J. Bernstein, N.R.C. Ottawa, Canada
• 1966 Dr. Ralph G. Pearson, Northwestern University
• 1965 Dr. Robert Parry, University of Michigan
• 1964 Dr. Robert West, University of Wisconsin
• 1963 Dr. Nelson Leonard, University of Illinois