Woods Lecture Series: John Warner

John Warner comes to Shelton Auditorium on Tuesday, March 2, 2027, at 7:30 PM. He'll be speaking as part of the J. James Woods Lecture Series at Butler University, and his talk is titled Green Chemistry as the Foundation of Sustainability and the Circular Economy.

If you're not familiar with the name, Warner is a big deal in the world of sustainable chemistry. He's one of the people who actually co-founded green chemistry as a field, and he's spent his career rethinking how chemicals and materials are designed at the molecular level—the goal being to reduce hazard and make circularity possible. He's worked across academia, industry, and government to move safer, more sustainable technologies forward, and he's held senior academic roles, including tenured professorships. He also started the world's first PhD program in Green Chemistry and co-founded Beyond Benign, a global non-profit that's trained thousands of educators and influenced chemistry curricula around the world.

The lecture itself fits right into the mission of the J. James Woods Lecture Series. The series was established by a gift from the estate of J. James Woods to bring prominent mathematicians and scientists to Butler University to talk about theories at the frontier of their disciplines, as well as related technologies and other issues of public concern. Warner's work on green chemistry and the circular economy is exactly that kind of topic—one that starts in the lab but reaches far beyond it.

It's free and open to the public, and no ticket is required. The talk is at Shelton Auditorium, part of Butler University at 4600 Sunset Ave in Indianapolis, starting at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, March 2.