Sir Fraser Stoddart, a pioneer in nanoscience, dies at 82

Nobel laureate Sir Fraser Stoddart, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemistry, died December 30. From 1967 to 1970, Dr. Stoddart, who received the Nobel Prize for his work in the design and synthesis of molecular machines, was a postdoctoral fellow in the Queen’s Department of Chemistry, working in the research group led by Dr. J.K. Jones. However, with Dr. Jones working abroad, he was supervised by the late Dr. Walter Szarek.

The inaugural Walter A. Szarek Lecture was delivered by Sir Fraser Stoddart at Queen's University on Friday, April 13, 2018. Attending the lecture were, from left, Mario Pinto, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Dr. Szarek, and Sir Fraser Stoddart.

It was Dr. Szarek who directed Sir Fraser’s research interests from carbohydrate chemistry to the then brand-new area of macrocycle synthesis and chemistry. Sir Fraser was a pioneer in the fields of nanoscience and organic chemistry. By introducing an additional type of bond — the mechanical bond — into chemical compounds, Sir Fraser became one of the few chemists to have opened a new field of chemistry.

It was only fitting that, on April 13, 2018, Sir Fraser Stoddart delivered the inaugural Walter A. Szarek Lecture.

The former head of the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Peter Loock, explains Dr. Stoddart's visit involved meeting with graduate students, one-on-one meetings with Dr. Szarek and many other faculty members and, a public lecture, which was attended by Queen's Nobel Laureate, Dr. Arthur McDonald.

“Dr. Stoddart's visit left a deep impression on me,” Dr. Loock says. “His friendly and humble engagement with students, staff, and faculty, the accessibility of his research talk, and the warmth in all his interactions with us chemists showed us that he was a wonderful scientist and human. I was sad to hear about his passing. I believe that the international chemistry community has lost a great pioneer and mentor.”