Smalley memorial slated for March 21

Smalley memorial slated for March 21

BY ARIE WILSON
Rice News staff

A memorial service honoring the late Nobel laureate Richard Smalley, who died in October after a long battle with cancer, will be held March 21.

Titled “Richard E. Smalley: Celebrating an Extraordinary Life,” the tribute will be held at 3 p.m. in Grand Hall, Rice Memorial Center.

Smalley, University Professor, the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics, was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with fellow Rice University chemist Robert Curl and British chemist Sir Harold Kroto for the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, or “buckyballs,” a new form of carbon.

Following the discovery, Smalley, who came to the university as an assistant professor in 1976, was instrumental in the development of nanoscience and technology at Rice.

“Rick was incredibly creative and had the ability to make his creative vision a reality,” said Curl, University Professor Emeritus and the Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Chemistry. “His mind was sharp and incisive. Whenever I brought up some point that I thought he might have overlooked, I found that he had already thought of it and refuted it in his own mind. I have met many eminent scientists; I’ve never met anyone smarter, more creative, and more focused. His mind was like a searchlight bringing whatever it looked at into clarity.”

Speakers at the service will include Rice President David Leebron; former Rice president Malcolm Gillis, University Professor and the Ervin Kenneth Zingler Professor of Economics and professor of management; Neal Lane, the Malcolm Gillis University Professor, senior fellow in science and technology at Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and professor of physics and astronomy; U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; Wade Adams, director of the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology; and graduate student Paul Cherikuru. Smalley’s widow, Deborah Smalley, will also take part in the program.

A reception will follow the service.

Seating is limited and available on a first-come basis; R.S.V.P. at <www.rice.edu/smalleymemorial>.

The memorial will also be webcast live at <http://webcast.rice.edu> and broadcast on Rice campus cable.

For more information, e-mail the Division of Public Affairs at <pubaffairs@rice.edu>.