Dale and Susan Poulter have lived and worked in Utah since 1969, when Dale took a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Dale grew up in Louisiana and graduated from Louisiana State University in 1964 with a BS degree in Chemistry. In 1967, he received his PhD in organic chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1967 to 1969.

At the University of Utah, Dale began research in biological applications of physical organic chemistry and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor and later to Professor. In his years of research and teaching, he has published over 290 research papers, and mentored many undergraduates, PhDs, and postdoctoral fellows. He was Chair of Chemistry from 1995–2000. Dale was appointed as the John A. Widtsoe Professor of Chemistry in 1994 and as a Distinguished Professor in 1996. In 2019, Dale became the John A. Widtsoe Distinguished Professor Emeritus. Dale has received many awards and is currently a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Acade-my of Arts and Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the AAAS and the ACS. Dale served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Organic Chemistry from 2001 to 2017 and as an associate editor for other journals.

Susan Poulter also grew up in Louisiana and pursued a career in science, first as a student in chemistry at Louisiana State University and then at University of California, Berkeley, where she received BS and PhD degrees in chemistry, and later performed research and teaching chem-istry at the University of Utah. She then turned to the field of law, obtaining a juris doctor-ate in 1983 from the University of Utah, where she was an editor of the Law Review and a mem-ber of the Order of the Coif.

After graduating, Susan entered legal practice, first at the firm of Parsons Behle and Latimer, and later as an in-house corporate attorney. There, her interests again turned to science, with practice in environmental law and intellectual property, among other fields. In 1990, she joined the faculty of the U’s College of Law, where she developed courses involving science and law and lectured and wrote on scientific evidence. She was also involved in various committees of the American Bar Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, including the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, and was a member of the advisory board of the AAAS Project on Court Appointed Experts. After retiring in 2014, Susan is now Professor Emerita of Law.

Susan and Dale now divide their time between Utah and Arizona, where they enjoy the wonderful outdoors of both.

Poulter Lectures:

Amy Rosenzweig, Northwestern  University – Seeing copper enzymes in their native membrane environment – 2024

Helen Blackwell, University of Wisconsin-Madison – Chemical Interception of Bacterial Cell-to-Cell Communication – 2022

Cathy Drennan, MIT – Shake, Rattle, & Roll: Capturing Snapshots of Ribonucleotide Reductase in Action – 2021

John Kozarich, ActivX Biosciences, Inc. – Reflections of an Enzyme Mechanic – 2018

Jackie Winter, University of Utah – Developing Heterologous Expression Platforms for Elucidating Fungal Natural Product Biosynthesis

Jeffrey Rudolph, University of Florida – Biosynthesis of the Antibiotics Platensimycin and Platencin

John Gerlt, University of Illinois – Discovery of Novel Enzymes in Novel Pathways