Theory and Applications of Computational Chemistry / sdarticlebio

Biographical sketches of contributors

Ad van der Avoird studied chemical engineering at the Technical University in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, from 1959 to 1964. From 1964 to 1967 he worked at the Battelle Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, and from 1967 to 1971 at the Unilever Research Laboratory in Vlaardingen, where in 1968 he became Head of the Molecular Physics section. In 1968 he obtained his Ph.D. degree at the Technical University in Eindhoven and in the same year he became Part-time Professor at the University of Nijmegen. In 1971 he became Full Professor of Theoretical Chemistry in Nijmegen. Since 1979 he is a member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and since 1997 a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science.

Alberto Vela was born in Mexico City. He received his B.E. in the Faculty of Chemistry-UNAM. He obtained his Ph.D. in science in 1988 in the Department of Chemistry at UAM-Iztapalapa under the supervision of J.L. Gazquez. In 1993 he was a Visiting Researcher, for almost 2 years, in Professor Dennis R. Salahub’s group where he started his journey with the program deMon. From 1983 to 1997 he was Full Professor of the Department of Chemistry at UAM-I where he participated in the creation of the Theoretical Physical Chemistry group. After 14 years in UAM he moved to Cinvestav where he started the Theoretical Chemistry group in 1997. In this later institution he is Full Professor of the Department of Chemistry.

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Ad van der Avoird

A. Vela

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Jacques Weber received a Ph.D. in physics (1969) from the University of Geneva (Switzerland). He was then a Research Fellow at the Quantum Theory Project of the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL) and at the IBM Research Laboratory (San Jose, CA). In 1976, he came back as a Lecturer to the Chemistry Department of the University of Geneva. He was appointed Full Professor of Computational Chemistry in 1989, occupying the first chair of that type created in Switzerland. His long experience in computational chemistry extends from the use of a card puncher for a CNDO program code to the development of methodologies and largescale applications in density functional theory.

Charles Edwin Webster was born in Florida and graduated from the University of West Florida with a B.S. degree in chemistry/biochemistry in 1995. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1999 at the University of Florida where he worked with Russell S. Drago, Michael C. Zerner, Michael J. Scott and C. Russell Bowers. He then joined Michael B. Hall’s research group at Texas A&M University and is currently an Assistant Research Scientist. His research focuses on using theoretical and computational chemistry to research and answer questions in a variety of areas, including biological enzyme catalysis, catalytic and stoichiometric mechanisms of bond activation and functionalization of organic molecules by organometallic transition metal complexes, and the elucidation of structure and bonding of various compounds of interest.

Biographical sketches of contributors

J. Weber

Charles Edwin Webster

Biographical sketches of contributors

M.-H. Whangbo received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1974 working under the direction of V. H. Smith, Jr. and S. Wolfe at Queen’s University, Canada. After postdoctoral studies with S. Wolfe at Queen’s University and R. Hoffmann at Cornell University, he joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in 1978. Throughout his scientific career, he has explored qualitative structure – property relationships in discrete molecules, extended solids and surfaces on the basis of formal theory developments and electronic structure calculations.

Paul E.S. Wormer was born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He studied chemical engineering at the Technical University in Delft, where he got his masters degree (cum laude). He got a Ph.D. degree (cum laude) at the University of Nijmegen in theoretical chemistry (supervisor A. van der Avoird). Currently he is Associate Professor at the Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). Several times he has been Visiting Research Professor at the University of Waterloo (Canada) where he collaborated with J. Paldus. P.E.S. Wormer is the (co)author of ca. 150 peer-reviewed research papers.

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Myung-Hwan Whangbo

Paul E.S. Wormer

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LinLin Zhao did her undergraduate work at Sichuan University in China, and is now a Graduate Student at Northwestern University working with Professor George Schatz. Her work has included studies of electrodynamics and quantum chemistry, including the use of electronic structure theory to calculate optical properties of molecules in the presence of metal clusters.

Guishan Zheng received his Master’s Degree in polymer science and physics in 2001 working under the direction of Professor Xue Gi in Nanjing University, China. After that, he joined Professor Keiji Morokuma’s group in Emory University in 2001 as a Ph.D. student. Currently, his research interest is mainly in nanoscale chemistry and the development of density functional based tight binding method.

Shengli Zou received B.S. and M.S. degrees in physical chemistry from Shandong University in China and a Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from Emory University (with Professor Joel M. Bowman) in 2003. He has been a postdoctoral fellow in Professor George C. Schatz’s lab at Northwestern University since December 2002. His research interests include the optical properties of nanoparticles and nanoparticle arrays and their applications in biological sensing. He is also interested in the self-assembly of biomolecules.

Biographical sketches of contributors

LinLin Zhao

Guishan Zheng

Shengli Zou