National Organic Chemistry Symposium will ‘Return to Roots’

The 49th National Organic Chemistry Symposium (NOS), sponsored by the Division of Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in partnership with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Department of Chemistry, will be held June 22–26 in Troy, New York, at RPI.

The event has a long history in New York—the first symposium was held in Rochester in 1925. “Five of the first 10 NOSs were held in New York or New England,” Ed Fenlon, cochair of the 49th NOS, says. “Since [the first 10 symposia], the NOS has only been in this region 3 times, with Cornell University hosting in 1989—36 years ago—being the most recent.” With the 100th NOS landing in New York, Fenlon wants to celebrate the roots of NOS with the symposium theme “Return to Roots.” He hopes that the location, which is within driving distance of a few large population centers, will result in high attendance at the conference.

Some things in the last 100 years of NOS haven’t changed even though they may look different than they did in 1925. “Field trips and extracurricular activities have been a constant,” Fenlon says. He shares that in 1925, the first NOS offered field trips to the Kodak research laboratories and Rochester Medical School and an extracurricular concert. This year’s field trips include visiting the New York State Capitol building and an Albany museum, as well as a riverboat excursion on the Hudson River. Fenlon shares that another constant is including both academic and industrial talks as part of the symposium. “In 1925, the industry talks were from [the] rubber, meat packing, and paper [industries]. In 2025, these will be pharmaceutical talks.”

Other aspects of the symposium have changed. “The first nine NOS were held in late December. In fact, some years the chemists celebrated New Year’s Eve at the NOS!” Fenlon says. The only 2 years NOS wasn’t held were 1943 and 1945 because of World War II. When NOS was held again, the organizers changed the time of year the symposium was held from December to June. Another significant change from 100 years ago is demographics. “It was not until 1985 that the first woman chemist, Marye Anne Fox, gave a plenary talk, whereas in 2025, nearly half—8 of 17—of the plenary speakers are women,” Fenlon says. “These changes reflect the change in the demographics of the Division of Organic Chemistry.” In 1921, less than 2% of Division of Organic Chemistry members were women, as compared with 20% in 2024.

The plenary talks have featured their fair share of notable speakers over the years. Fenlon points to 1931 and 1969. In 1931, Wallace Carothers of DuPont gave a talk titled “Some Reactions of Vinylacetylene and the Synthetic Rubber Problem.” The New York Times reported that “the 400 chemists present applauded his address, and the discovery was hailed as a great triumph for American chemistry.” The 1969 NOS in Salt Lake City had 11 speakers, and 5 of them would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “So their talks were certainly impactful,” Fenlon says. “At this same NOS, Saul Winstein and H. C. Brown had another round of their decade-long disagreement over nonclassical carbocations.”

You can view a list of this year's speakers online at nationalorganicsymposium.org/speakers, which includes Eric Jacobsen of Harvard University, recipient of the 2025 Roger Adams Award. The award has been given at NOS since its first presentation in 1959. The purpose of the award is “to recognize and encourage outstanding contributions to research in organic chemistry defined in its broadest sense.” The symposium also includes a poster session, as it did in the first Division of Organic Chemistry–sponsored conference in 1987.

While Fenlon believes that predicting the future is a dangerous exercise, he has some wishes for the next 100 years. “I hope that chemists are still gathering to discuss the latest developments in our field, which will likely have even more overlap with medicine and materials,” Fenlon says. “I also hope they spend some time looking back at the 200-year history of an outstanding symposium.”

Registration for NOS is now open. Registration and program details can be found at nationalorganicsymposium.org.