| 1979/80 | Prof. R.Stephen Berry, Chicago (Hilary Term) |
| Prof. Richard B. Bernstein, Columbia University (Trinity Term) [Died 1990] |
| 1980/81 | Dr. John A. Barker, IBM, San Jose, California [Died 1995] |
| 1981/82 | Prof. Richard N. Zare, Stanford |
| 1982/83 | No Lecturer |
| 1983/84 | Prof. Robin M. Hochstrasser, Pennsylvania |
| 1984/85 | Prof. Frederic M. Richards, Yale |
| 1985/86 | Prof. Berni Alder, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, |
| 1986/87 | No Lecturer (Newton-Abraham Visiting Professor, R.S. Berry, instead) |
| 1987/88 | Prof. Martin Quack, Zürich |
| 1988/89 | Prof. William Klemperer, Harvard |
| 1989/90 | Prof. Alex Pines, University of California, Berkeley |
| 1990/91 | Prof. John W. White, Australian National University, |
| 1991/92 | Prof. Ahmed H. Zewail, Arthur Amos Noyes Lab. of Chemical Physics, Caltech |
| 1992/93 | Prof. David Chandler, Dept. of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley |
| 1993/94 | Prof. Gabor A. Somorjai, University of California, |
| 1994/95 | Prof. Joshua Jortner, School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv |
| 1995/96 | Prof. Kenneth B. Eisenthal, Dept. of Chemistry, Columbia |
| 1996/97 | Prof. Peter G. Wolynes, School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois |
| 1997/98 | Prof. Alan M. Bond, Dept. of Chemistry, Monash University |
| 1998/99 | Prof. Richard R. Ernst, ETH Zürich |
| 1999/2000 | No Lecturer (Newton-Abraham Visiting Professor, S.A. Rice, instead) |
| 2000/01 | Prof. J. Peter Toennies, Max-Planck-Institut für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen |
| 2001/02 | Prof. P.G. de Gennes, Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles, Paris |
| 2002/03 | Prof. Steven Chu, Department of Physics, Stanford |
| 2003/04 | Prof. Graham Fleming, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2004/05 | Prof. Christian Amatore, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris (May 2005) |
| 2005/06 | Prof. Richard Saykally, University of California, Berkeley |