The Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professorships Program

The University of Iowa honors the memory of an Iowa woman, Ida Cordelia Beam, whose quiet gift of Benton County Land ever renews learning. The program has since 1977 brought hundreds of eminent scholars and scientists to give public lectures and to meet with students and faculty.

Most Recent Lecturer

Dr. Michael P. Doyle, currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Maryland, has made invaluable contributions to synthetic organic chemistry and chemical education throughout his 40 year career.  Professor Doyle’s research interests concern discovering and developing efficient and asymmetric transition metal catalyzed reactions useful for the functionalization of organic compounds.  In particular, Prof. Doyle and his co-workers have extensively explored the chemistry of rhodium carbenes generated from dirhodium carboxamidate complexes.  These “Doyle Catyalysts” are capable of facilitating a wide range of stereoselective transformations to produce complex organic products.  Recently, the Doyle group has extended the utility of dirhodium carboxamidates to also include catalysis of oxidation and cycloaddition reactions.  Professor Doyle is equally established as a leader in the area of chemical education, particularly related to the inclusion of undergraduate students in original research. 

Professor Doyle spent the first 29 years of his career on the faculty of predominantly undergraduate four-year liberal arts institutions (Hope College in Holland, Michigan and Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas).  During this time his research program rose to international prominence while relying largely on the efforts of undergraduate research participants (his papers include over 130 undergraduate student co-authors).  In 1997 Prof. Doyle left Trinity University to become Vice-President, and later President, of the Research Corporation as well as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Arizona.  In 2003 Prof. Doyle assumed his current position at the University of Maryland.  Professor Doyle has a long list of research accomplishments and has published over 270 papers in leading chemistry journals.  He received an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 2006 and a Merit Award from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences in 2003.  For his efforts in chemical education Prof. Doyle was named recipient of the George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education from the American Chemical Society in 2002 and the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Teaching of Chemistry from the Northeastern section of the American Chemical Society in 1995.  Professor Doyle is also active in the American Chemical Society, and he serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards.  Born in Minneapolis, MN, Prof. Doyle earned his B.S. degree from the College of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Iowa State University (under the direction of Walter Trahanovsky).

Past Ida Cordelia Beam Lecturer's

• 2008. Jacqueline K. Barton. California Institute of Technology.
• 2001. Karl Wieghardt. Max Plank Institute, Germany.
• 1997. Mario Molina. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• 1994. James Collman. Stanford University.
• 1992. John Polanyi. University of Toronto, Canada.
• 1990. Malcomb Green. University of Oxford, England.
• 1989. Derek Barton. Texas A & M University.
• 1987. Cristopher Walsh. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• 1986. George Pimentel. University of California, Berkeley.