The American Carbon Society
The American Carbon Society Graffin Lecture Series
The American Carbon Society, supported by grants from Asbury Advanced Materials, sponsors a lecture series at North American universities in honor of George D. Graffin, a pioneer in the natural graphite industry.
Each year, the Society selects a lecturer who has made distinguished contributions to carbon science and engineering. The lecture is available by direct arrangement with this year’s lecturer – Vincent Meunier.
The 2026 – 2027 Graffin Lecturer is: Vincent Meunier from Penn State University.
Dr Meunier is the PB Breneman Chair and Head of the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department at Penn State University, where his current work is focused on:
Dr Meunier also serves as founding and current Editor-in-Chief of the journal Carbon Trends, after serving a Senior Editor of the journal Carbon until 2020. He was co-chair of the technical program of the annual Carbon Conference held in Charleston, SC in 2026 and he currently serves as a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Carbon Society.
The 2026 – 2027 Graffin Lecture is Carbon by Design: One Element, Endless Materials
Abstract
No element rivals carbon’s talent for reinvention. From graphite that launched an industry to fibers, fullerenes, nanotubes, two-dimensional allotropes, and a growing collection of exotic architectures in between, carbon assembles itself into materials of astonishing diversity. Most of which were discovered by accident. But how many forms of carbon are possible? Can we map that space systematically, and then build the structures we predict, atom by atom? And once we’ve made them, how do we listen to what they tell us? This lecture traces carbon science’s transformation from an era of serendipitous discovery to one of deliberate design. We will see how theory and computation now enumerate and classify carbon architectures before they exist, how on-surface synthesis turns those blueprints into atomically precise nanostructures, from molecular nanographenes to novel low-dimensional forms, with engineered electronic, magnetic, and even topological properties, and how Raman spectroscopy serves as a universal fingerprint connecting the oldest carbons to the newest. Along the way, recent work from our group and our collaborators will illustrate how the dialogue between prediction and experiment has become the engine of the field, spanning classification schemes for entirely new carbon networks, precision-synthesized nanostructures, and layered materials whose atoms dance to remarkably localized rhythms. We will close by asking what comes next: artificial intelligence, digital twins, and the design challenges (from energy storage to sustainability) that will define carbon science’s future.
To Schedule A Lecture, Please Contact Dr Meunier Directly At vincent.meunier@psu.edu.
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