Inorganic and materials chemistry students and faculty get together each September at the Allerton Park and Retreat Center to celebrate the beginning of the fall semester. The event combines a program of student lectures and poster sessions highlighting research progress with a series of social events promoting interaction between different research groups and introducing new students to the inorganic and materials chemistry community. Undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty involved in inorganic and materials chemistry from across the campus are invited to participate. The conference concludes with a formal banquet, but participants may choose to stay well into the evening for games and socializing.
IMCAC 2026
September 19, 2026
8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Allerton Conference Center
If you are interested in presenting at IMAC during the September 18, 2026, event, please fill out the form by the August 1, 2026, deadline.
Presentation Interest Form 2026
Conference Sponsors
The annual conference is sponsored by the Changwoo Park - Walter Klemperer Inorganic and Materials Chemistry Allerton Conference Fund.
Dr. Changwoo Park
Changwoo Park was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1962. He was awarded a B.S. in Chemistry from Yonsei University, Korea, in 1985 and continued his education in the United States, receiving his M.S. in chemistry from Michigan State University in 1988 and his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1993 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign working with Professor Walter Klemperer. At that time, he received the Theron Standish Piper Award for Outstanding Thesis Research. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University working with Professor James Ibers, he joined LG Chem Ltd. as a principal researcher in 1995 before accepting a position at Hanbat National University Korea as Professor of Chemistry from 1997 to 2020. In 2000, he became the founder CEO of Advanced Nano Products Co. Ltd., a multinational corporation encompassing research, development, and mass-production of nanosized materials. In 2021, Dr. Park became a member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea.
Prof. Walter G. Klemperer
Walter G. Klemperer was born in Saranac Lake, New York, in 1947. He received his B.A. in chemistry from Harvard College with Professor Eugene Rochow in 1968 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Professor F. Albert Cotton in 1973. Before joining the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty in 1981, he was Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. His research interests have included the application of graph theory and combinatorial algebra to dynamic stereochemistry, the organic and organometallic chemistry of early transition metal polyoxometalates, and inorganic materials chemistry, including perovskite, zeolite,cement, and sol-gel chemistry, as well as the chemistry of self-assembled inorganic monolayers.
Photos of the inaugural IMCAC on September 16, 2023
