Penn State students got to hear the words of a Nobel Prize winner yesterday when Richard R. Schrock appeared on campus.

Schrock, who is the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, won the Nobel Prize in 2005 for chemistry. He appeared in the Buckhout Laboratory courtesy of a partnership between the Nobel Foundation and Honeywell to speak at the Honeywell Nobel Laureate Lecture Series.

William Woodward (graduate-physical chemistry) and Darren Hydutsky (graduate-physical chemistry) said they were eager to hear from the prize-winning scientist.

"The fact that [Dr. Schrock] was a Nobel Laureate certainly played a factor" in his desire to attend the lecture, Hydutsky said.

The speech focused on the reduction of dinitrogen to ammonia in mild conditions.

Schrock said this reduction is a "tremendously important reaction for all of life."

Practically, this research can be used to save all types of energy from nuclear forms to waterpower, he said.

The opportunity to hear Schrock's lecture as a part of Honeywell's series was granted to students of only 11 universities in the world, five of which are in the U.S.

Jill Stueck, project manager for the Honeywell-Nobel Initiative, said Honeywell is aiming to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers and, consequently, partners the Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Series with universities from which Honeywell can recruit talented science and engineering professionals.

"One of our initiatives is educating the next generation of scientists and engineers," she said. "Our future lies in making sure students are still drawn to these fields."