Former director of Athens, Greece research institute to present 2025 Scholes Lecture at Alfred University

In addition to the lecture, Alfred University’s Inamori School of Engineering will host a number of associated events, including a rededication of the Van Frechette Friendship Park in honor of its 50th anniversary, and a grand re-opening of the Paul Vickers Gardner Glass Center.

The Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute is one of four research institutes comprising the National Hellenic Research Foundation, which was founded in 1958 and is a non-profit Research Foundation supervised by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs in Greece. The TPCI was established in 1979 and its research activities involve selected fields of chemistry, physics and materials science, aiming at the advancement of science and technology in search of novel materials with advanced functional characteristics and potentially suitable for innovative technological applications. 

The primary focus of Kamitsos’ research is materials physical chemistry, including synthesis, structure and dynamics of materials ranging from low‑dimensional charge transfer compounds to glassy electrolytes, and the engineering of electrical and optical functionalities by external stimuli like laser irradiation, thermal-poling and ion-exchange.

Kamitsos’ lecture is titled “Structure and Ion Dynamics in Melt-Quenched and Ion-Exchanged Glasses.” According to the abstract, the lecture will discuss:

 “The structure of modified glasses reflects a balance between the needs of the modifier ions to occupy suitable coordination environments (sites) and the chemical versatility of the network former to provide such sites. The knowledge of the complex environments around metal ions is important for understanding the composition dependence of glass properties like ionic transport, viscosity and performance of glass as host material for laser ions. Raman and infrared spectroscopy have been used to probe the network former structure and the sites of the modifier ions, while molecular dynamics and impedance spectroscopy are suitable techniques to study ion dynamics. In this lecture, we will present results on the structure and ion dynamics in metal ion containing borate and silicate glasses. It will be shown that the field strength of the metal ions dictates the chemical equilibria controlling the local network structure and the formation of ion sites in melt-quenched and ion-exchanged glasses.”

Kamitsos joined the TPCI of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in 1985 and was a researcher from 1985-2022. He served four terms as director of the Institute (1997-2020) and was director and Chairman of the Board of the NHRF from March 2012 to October 2013. He has served on numerous national and international scientific committees, has been visiting researcher at many universities in Europe and the United States, and has established and directed major research programs in spectroscopy and materials science with substantial funding from national and European competitive programs. 

He has received many awards and distinctions, including the Potter Prize in Chemistry for the best Ph.D. thesis, Brown University (1984); the 2021 Alfred R. Cooper Award by the American Ceramic Society (ACerS); and the Award for Lifelong Achievements in Chemistry by the Association of Greek Chemists (2024). Kamitsos was designated the Honoree of the 10^th International Conference on Borate Glasses, Crystals and Melts, held in Corning, NY, in 2023.

The Scholes Lecture Series was established in 1982 by alumni of Alfred University to honor the late Samuel R. Scholes, who in 1932 established the first glass science program in the United States at the New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) at Alfred University. He served as dean, associate dean, head of the Department of Glass Technology, and professor of glass science.

The rededication ceremony for the Van Fréchette International Friendship Park, located at the top of Pine Street next to Scholes Library, will be held from 10:30-11 a.m., just prior to the Scholes Lecture. The park was originally dedicated in 2000—as part of the NYSCC Centennial celebration—to the “causes of peace, friendship, and cultural understanding” and to international students who “met the challenges of language, culture, and distance to study at Alfred University.”

The park is named for Professor Van Derck Fréchette, who was associated with Alfred University for more than 50 years as a student, teacher, researcher, and benefactor. He joined the faculty in 1944 and retired in 1987. Fréchette was a world-renowned expert on glass fractography and established the Study Abroad Program at NYSCC. He characterized the exchanges as “relationship(s)...based on long acquaintance, professional respect, and mutual trust.” The rededication ceremony is being held as part of the celebration around the 125^th anniversary of the NYSCC.

Following the lecture and the Scholes Award Lecture luncheon, a poster session focusing on glass science will be held from 2-3 p.m. in Binns-Merrill Hall, Room 244.

A reception marking the grand re-opening of the Paul Vickers Gardner Glass Center will be held from 3-5 p.m. in the Palladium Room on the second floor of Binns-Merrill Hall. The event will reintroduce the community to the Center, which enhances education in the art and science of glass for artists, scientists, and lovers of glass through the curriculum, workshops, lectures, and archival resources.

The reception will celebrate the Center and launch the current exhibition, “The Science of Design: Frederick Carder and Paul Vickers Gardner,” curated by glass engineering science PhD student Annika Blake-Howland, with assistance from students in Assistant Professor of Art History Matthew Limb’s Fall 2024 course “Museum and its Discontents” and Associate Professor of Glass Science and Engineering Doris Möncke’s Spring 2025 course “Natural Glasses.”