Binghamton University to host watch party for Nobel Prize ceremony for its professor

VESTAL, N.Y. — Binghamton University will host a watch party for the ceremony in which professor M. Stanley Whittingham is honored for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The ceremony will be livestreamed at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 10 in Stockholm, Sweden, Binghamton University said in a news release.

The school will hold the watch party inside the Center of Excellence at Binghamton University’s Innovative Technologies Complex. The livestream will last about 90 minutes and is free and open to the public.

Whittingham is Binghamton University’s first Nobel Prize laureate. He is among a group of three that is sharing this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of lithium-ion batteries. Whittingham is one of 12 laureates in the disciplines of chemistry, physiology or medicine, economic sciences, and physics who will be recognized during the ceremony.

Whittingham left for Stockholm on Wednesday. Until he boards a plane to return, his time is “scheduled down to the minute, including for the fitting of his formal attire,” the school noted.

“There’s one event after the other,” Whittingham said. “TV interviews, talking to high school classes, giving formal lectures at Stockholm University and Uppsala University, and a banquet.”

Whittingham also noted that the Nobel honorees won’t actually get their medals during the ceremony “because too many people lose them.”

“We pick it up later,” Whittingham said, adding that the Nobel Foundation will award the medal on Dec. 12.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com