POTSDAM -- Clarkson University will host professor Richard Zare of Stanford University for the Shipley Distinguished Lectureship April 18 and 19.

Zare will speak about "The Chemistry of Drink” Thursday, April 18 at 4:15 p.m. in Science Center room 360. The presentation will be preceded by a 3:30 p.m. reception.

"Fizz and foam has always spelled fun to me as early as I can remember... Imagine the surprise to find that bubbles do occupy an important place in contemporary technology," said Zare.

Zare will use demonstrations to answer questions about how bubbles in drinks work. Zare warns that his audience should except some “surprises” and that "only the brave should sit in the front row."

Zare will also explain the important place bubbles occupy in contemporary technology, such as the bubbles used to recover oil from “tired” oil wells.

Zare will host a second talk, “Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy: A New Way to Make Ultra Sensitive Absorption Measurements" Friday, April 19 at 11 a.m. in Bertrand H. Snell Hall room 213.

Zare will review the physical basis of a cavity-enhanced absorption technique called cavity ring-down spectroscopy and present some applications, including the measurement of stable isotope ratios without the use of mass spectrometers.

Zare is a graduate of Harvard University, where he received his bachelor of arts degree in chemistry and physics in 1961 and his Ph.D. in chemical physics in 1964.

He taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Colorado and Columbia University, moving to Stanford University in 1977.

Zare was named chair of the department of chemistry in 2005 and in 2006 was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor.

Zare has received numerous honors and awards, teaching awards and honorary degrees.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, and the World Jewish Academy of Sciences.

Clarkson’s Shipley Lectures are sponsored by the Shipley Family Foundation, with support from Clarkson's Center for Advanced Materials Processing (CAMP).

For more information about the lectures, please contact organizer Egon Matijevic at 268-2392.