The Fredrickson Lecture

The Fredrickson Lecture, established in 2001, honors Prof. Arnold (Arnie) Gerhard Fredrickson's legacy as a leader in biological research within the chemical engineering discipline and as an educator. The people selected for this lecture are leaders in biochemical engineering, from either academia or industry. As part of their visit to CEMS, the Fredrickson Lecturer gives a departmental seminar to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers on the first day of their visit, and gives a more general lecture for the undergraduate chemical engineering juniors as part of ChEn 3701: Biomolecular Engineering. This unique format within CEMS reflects Prof. Fredrickson's impact on our dual mission of teaching and research, and allows broad participation in the speaker's visit to the department.

Prof. Fredrickson was a pioneering professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, widely known for research that merged biology and chemical engineering with mathematics and modeling. At Minnesota, he focused on modeling the dynamics and kinetics of microbial and cellular growth processes. Prof. Fredrickson authored more than 100 scientific publications and advised over 50 graduate students. He was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 1993 and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1997 in recognition of his contributions to the field.

Past Fredrickson Lecturers
2026 - David Schaeffer, UC Berkeley
2025 - Dane Wittrup, MIT
2024 - Kristi Anseth, Colorado
2023 - Melody Swartz, U. Chicago
2021 - Kristala Jones-Prather, MIT
2019 - Michael Jewett, Northwestern
2018 - Zhenan Bao, Stanford
2017 - Molly Shoichet, University of Toronto
2016 - Stéphane Bancel, Moderna Therapeutics
2015 - Rakesh Jain, Harvard
2014 - George Georgiou, UT Austin
2013 - David Tirrell, CalTech
2012 - Pablo Debenedetti, Princeton
2011 - James Liao, UCLA
2010 - Michael Shuler, Cornell
2009 - Ron Larson, Michigan
2008 - Mark Davis, Caltech
2007 - Ann Lee, Genentech
2006 - Sangtae Kim, Purdue
2005 - Chaitan Khosla, Stanford
2004 - Doraiswami Ramkrishna, Purdue
2003 - Fred Bader, Centocor
2002 - Greg Stephanopolous, MIT