Purdue Nobel laureate will welcome students from his alma mater

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Nobel laureate Ei-ichi Negishi will welcome a group of students from his high school alma mater in Japan to the Purdue University campus in late March.

About 44 students, along with administrators and teachers from Shonan Senior High School in Kanagawa, Japan, will visit Purdue from March 26-31. The trip is designed to be educational for the students, offering an insight into the possibility of continuing their education internationally. It also will familiarize them with the learning opportunities available at Purdue, from STEM disciplines to social sciences.

Negishi, Purdue’s Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and a 2010 recipient of the Nobel Prize, graduated from Shonan High School in 1953.

One of the highlights of the weeklong trip will be a special lecture by Negishi, titled, “Pursuit of my dreams for half a century.” West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis will give welcome remarks prior to Negishi’s lecture.

“To many students visiting from Japan this may well be the first trip to the United States or any Western country,” Negishi said. “And they will observe and learn many new and eye-opening things, which might change their future for the better, I hope, as in my own case more than half a century ago.”

 Each day on campus the group will visit a different facility and learn about a different discipline including nanotechnology, history, bioengineering and entrepreneurship.

Students will spend one day primarily learning about entrepreneurship visiting the Kurz Purdue Technology Center, where Tim Peoples, managing director of the Purdue Foundry, will give a presentation along with other entrepreneurs.

Masanobu Yamamoto, an adjunct professor in Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine, is the chief organizer of the group’s visit. Yamamoto was a lead engineer for the Sony Corp. and played a key role in developing Blu-ray technology. He also has a startup company “Miftek Corp.,” in the Purdue Research Park. The company targets next-generation cellular analysis.

The group will tour numerous buildings on Purdue’s campus, ranging from those used for fun and recreation to others used for academics and research. Rides on the Boilermaker Special will be offered, while the group will tour Mackey Arena. Other visits on campus will include Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering and the Honors College.

Negishi won the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his palladium-catalyzed cross coupling technique to link carbon atoms, known as “Negishi coupling,” that allows various organic compounds to be synthesized widely, efficiently and selectively. His work has been widely used in both academic and industrial research, and in the production of fine chemicals - including pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and high tech materials. Examples of applications include drug manufacturing, fluorescent marking that has been essential for DNA sequencing and creating materials for thin LED displays.

Media contact: Brian Peloza, 765-496-9711, bpeloza@purdue.edu 

Source:  Masanobu Yamamoto, yamamoto@purdue.edu

Note to journalists: Ei-ichi Negishi’s lecture to the visiting group from Shonan High School will be open to media. The lecture is at 9:30 a.m. Monday (March 27) in Room 4102 of the Herbert C. Brown Laboratory of Chemistry.