The Lars Onsager Lecture and Professorship
The Lars Onsager Lecture and Professorship
Call for nominations for the 2026 Lars Onsager Lecturer and Lars Onsager Professor
We invite permanent faculty at the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Biotechnology, and Food Science, as well as Mathematical Sciences, to propose candidates for the 2025 Lars Onsager Lecturer and Lars Onsager Professorship here at NTNU.
Candidates for the Lars Onsager Professorship should be outstanding scientists willing to spend 3-6 months here at NTNU. The Onsager Professor will receive a salary (trinn 80 i Statens regulativ) while at NTNU. In addition, NTNU will reimburse travel expenses to NTNU and necessary insurance. The host department will receive a 10% overhead and 10% to cover running expenses.
Please submit proposals (in English and pdf format only) by email to the chair of the Onsager committee, Prof. Helge Holden (helge.holden@ntnu.no). The deadline to be announced
Lars Onsager (1903–1976)
Lars Onsager was a Norwegian-American chemist and physicist. Onsager was born in Oslo. He held a Ch.E. degree (1925) from NTH (Norwegian Institute of Technology, later NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology).
Onsager migrated to the USA in 1928, and became an American citizen in 1945. Onsager was a J. Willard Gibbs Professor at Yale University.
Onsager was awarded the The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1968 for his work done in 1931 on irreversible thermodynamics.
The Lars Onsager Lecture 2025
Dr. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
The Onsager Lecture is scheduled for 9 October 2025. For further details, please contact Prof. Helge Holden.
Lars Onsager Professorship
The Lars Onsager Professor 2025
Dr. Lydéric Bocquet, CNRS Director of Research, at the Laboratoire de Physique Statistique and Professor at l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.
For further details, please contact Prof. Erika Eiser or Prof. Helge Holden.
Previous Lars Onsager Professors
The Onsager Medal
The Onsager Lecturer and the Onsager Professor receive the Onsager Medal.
Artist: Harald Wårvik. Minted by The Mint of Norway (Det Norske Myntverket), Kongsberg, Norway.
The Lars Onsager Archive
Thanks to the generosity of Lars Onsager's sons and daughter, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology has established a Lars Onsager Archive.
The Lars Onsager Archive is located at the Dora Library (a repository library for the NTNU University Library) and the Gunnerus Library (the Special Collections of the NTNU University Library) in Trondheim, Norway.
A substantial part of the archive has now been made freely available in digital form:
Biographical Material
A general reference to the scientific works of Lars Onsager is:
- The Collected Works of Lars Onsager (with commentary)
P.C. Hemmer, H. Holden, S.K. Ratkje, editors
World Scientific, Singapore 1996 - A biography on Lars Onsager (pdf)
by P.C. Hemmer and E. Hiis Hauge is printed in the book «Norwegian Nobel Prize Laureates», (Olav Njølstad, ed.), Universitetsforlaget, 2006. - In Norwegian: Boken er også utgitt på norsk, «Norske nobelprisvinnere», (Olav Njølstad, red.) Universitetsforlaget, 2005.
The Onsager Committee
The Lars Onsager Lecture and the Lars Onsager Professorship are awarded by the Onsager Committee which consists of:
- Professor Helge Holden (Chairman), Department of Mathematical Sciences, NTNU
- Professor Arne Brataas, Department of Physics, NTNU
Regulations for the Lars Onsager Lecture and the Lars Onsager Professorship.
The Nobel Prize 1968
Video at YouTube: King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden, Lars Onsager and other nobilities and prize winners.
Yale University
Lars Onsager in his office at the Sterling Chemistry Laboratory at Yale University. Photo: Yale Picture Collection / Arkivsenteret at Dora.
Onsager stamp
Lars Onsager on stamp. Norwegian Post's 2003 series of stamps with Nobel Laureates.