Dourdeville Lecture

About the Lecture

Established in 2015, the Dana M. Dourdeville Lecture on Engineering in Service to Society aims to bring high-profile speakers to campus whose career and impact embody the spirit of engineering in service to society. The speakers should inspire students to see the engineering discipline as one having an impact on society that is both profound and transformative. 
Stacey Bent

2025 Lecture - Stacey F. Bent

Stacey F. Bent is the Jagdeep and Roshni Singh Professor at Stanford University, where she is Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Energy Science and Engineering, and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemistry, of Materials Science and Engineering, and of Electrical Engineering. She recently completed a five year term as Stanford's Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs. 

Bent obtained her B.S. degree in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Stanford, and she was a postdoctoral fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Bent’s research interests are in the understanding of surface chemistry and materials synthesis and the application of this knowledge to a variety of problems in sustainable energy, semiconductor processing, and nanotechnology. Bent was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2020. She is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Vacuum Society (AVS). She is the recipient of the 2018 ACS Award in Surface Chemistry, the 2020 SRC Technical Excellence Award, and 2021 ALD Innovator Award, and the 2021 Braskem Award for Excellence in Materials Engineering and Science from AIChE.