- QTP co-sponsored The "March" Meeting, A Symposium in Honor of Norman H. March, jointly with the Laboratoire de Chemie Théorique (Université de Namur, Belgium), 21-23 Nov. 2013. QTP speakers included Hai-Ping Cheng, Frank Harris, Hendrik Monkhorst, Yngve Öhrn, and Sam Trickey. In addition to being a noted and formidable contributor to many-electron theory and statisttical mechanics, Norman March was a loyal Sanibel Symposium participant for many years until he was no longer able to do trans-Atlantic travel.
- JIM FOLKS has left QTP to be the accountant for the Department of Physics. Please see Rebecca Brothers (QTP Student Asst.) in room 2230, for your QTP needs.
- Dr. Adrian Roitberg has once again been recognized for his work as a leader in the community. He has been named a Fellow with the American Chemical Society.
Contribution to the science/profession: Recognized as a leader in advancing molecular modeling techniques for biomolecules. Served as a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry for four years.
Contribution to the ACS community: Served the Computers in Chemistry Division in various roles. Involved in ACS activities to foster mentoring of underrepresented minority students.
- Prof. Rod Bartlett was selected as the Lise Meitner Lecturer for
2013 for his pioneering coupled-cluster and many-body perturbation
theories for electron correlation in atoms, molecules, and solids. Awarded since 1998,
the lectureship is a distinction given by the Lise Meitner-Minvera Center in Israel to a
prominent quantum chemist whose work has had an important impact on the chemical community.
In addition to the principal lecture that was presented at the Computational Chemistry Symposium held November 3, 2013, at the Weismann Institute of Science, he gave three additional invited lectures. The first was to the chemistry department at the Weizmann Institute in Rehoboth, the second at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the third at the Technion in Haifa.
The Lectureship is named for Lise Meitner, an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who shared the Enrico Fermi Award in 1966, with fellow chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, for their collaborative work on the discovery of uranium fission. She remains one of the most important figures in the fields of radioactivity and nuclear physics. The name of the chemical element, meitnerium (Mt), was suggested in Meitner's honor, who is also widely credited as the discoverer of protactinium
The Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry was established by the Minerva Foundation of the Max Plank Institute (Germany) in 1997 as a joint effort between Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Technion Institute in Haifa.
- Rod Bartlett, Graduate Research Prof., Quantum Theory Project, was honored by the Seventh Molecular Quantum Mechanics (MQM) meeting in Lugano, CH, June 2-7, 2013. The topic was "Electron Correlation: The Many-Body Problem at the Heart of Chemistry," a field that Prof. Bartlett helped pioneer. The meeting attracted 330 scientists. Dr. Ajith Perera of QTP was one of the 69 plenary speakers, while Mr. Alex Bazanté and Mr. Matt Strasberg, graduate students in Bartlett's group presented two of the 200 poster presentations. In addition 40 other former Bartlett group members were in attendance as speakers, chairs, organizers, or participants. Previous MQM meetings have honored the notable quantum chemists, John Pople, Ernest Davidson, Isaiah Shavitt, Nick Handy, Peter Pulay, and Henry Shafer.