Department of Natural Sciences
Fall 2026 Seminars
DNS Seminars take place in-person in Burns Auditorium (NS E007)
Fridays 12:15pm – 1:15pm PT
| Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
| 09/11/2026 | Britt Ransom, MFA Associate Professor of Art |
Carnegie Mellon University | TBA |
| 09/18/2026 | Dr. Veronica Padilla Vriesman Assistant Professor of Environmental Science |
Pitzer & Scripps Colleges | TBA |
| 09/25/2026 | Dr. Bethany Caulkins Assistant Professor of Chemistry |
Pitzer & Scripps Colleges | TBA |
| 10/02/2026 | Gautam Agarwal Assistant Professor of Neuroscience |
Pitzer & Scripps Colleges | TBA |
| 10/09/2026 | Dr. Sierra Williams Assistant Professor of Chemistry |
Pitzer & Scripps Colleges | TBA |
| 10/23/2026 | Dr. Elizabeth Crone Professor of Evolution and Ecology |
UC Davis | TBA |
| 11/13/2026 | Dr. Ashley Heers Assistant Professor of Biology |
Pitzer & Scripps Colleges | TBA |
MORE DNS SEMINARS WILL BE ADDED SOON
5C Chemistry Seminars
Spring 2026
Most seminars take place on Tuesdays, 11:00am – 12:00pm PT unless noted otherwise.
| Date & Time |
Speaker | Affiliation | Host/Location | Title |
| 9/8/2026 11am |
Matthew Francis | UC Berkeley | DNS (Pomona Seaver North) | New Platforms for Vaccination and Cancer Treatment from Synthetically Modified Viral Capsids |
| 9/8/2026 3:15pm |
Matthew Francis | UC Berkeley | DNS (Burns Lecture Hall) | Using Protein Chemistry in the Kitchen (Special Seminar) |
| 9/15/2026 11am |
Santiago Toledo | American University | POM (Seaver North Auditorium) | Functional synthetic biomimetic models of metalloenzymes: Mechanistic insights for understanding the role of metals in disease and emerging applications |
| 9/22/2026 11am |
Matthew Griffin | UC Irvine | DNS (Pomona Seaver North) | Chemical tools to understand microbiota-to-host communication |
| 10/13/2026 11am |
Michael Bertucci | Lafayette College | POM (Seaver North Auditorium) | Characterizing the peptide-based quorum sensing systems in S.gordonii and L. plantarum |
| 10/27/2026 11am |
Osvaldo Gutierrez | UCLA | HMC (Shanahan B480) | Multicomponent Fe-Catalyzed Radical Cross-Coupling Reactions |
| 11/3/2026 11am |
Timothy C. Johnstone | UC Santa Cruz | HMC (Shanahan B480) | Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Antidotes and New Main-Group Bonding Motifs: Medicinal and Fundamental Inorganic Chemistry |
| 11/10/2026 11am |
Nick Jacson | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | HMC (Shanahan B480) | AI-Driven Quantum Mechanical Design of Soft Materials |
| 11/17/2026 11am |
Amie Boal | Penn State | POM (Seaver North Auditorium) | The periodic table of ribonucleotide reductases |
| 11/24/2026 11am |
Lesley-Ann Giddings | Smith College | DNS (Pomona Seaver North) | From Extreme Environments to Engineered Chemistry: Exploring Microbial Siderophores |