COLUMBUS, Ohio (Nov. 12, 2015) – William Andrew Goddard III, Ph.D., will deliver the 2015 Pitzer Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry at 4:10 p.m. Nov. 23 in Room 2015 of McPherson Laboratory, 140 W. 18th Ave., on the main campus of The Ohio State University. A post-lecture reception will follow in Room 100 of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Chemistry Building, 151 Woodruff Ave.
The Pitzer Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry is organized and supported by the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and The Ohio State Department of Chemistry.
Goddard’s lecture is titled, “Progress in First Principles Based Multiscale Methods for Reaction Dynamics with Applications to Catalysis, Water Splitting, Electrochemistry, CO2 Reduction, Ductile Ceramics, and Novel Medicinal Therapies.”
Goddard is the Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry and Applied Physics, and Director of the Materials and Process Simulation Center at the California Institute of Technology.
Goddard has been published in 1,028 peer-reviewed articles – as of July 2013 – and has made many contributions to theoretical chemistry. Some of those contributions include generalized valance bond (GVB) method for ab initio electronic structure calculations and the ReaxFF force field for classical molecular dynamics simulations.
He is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
In August 2007, the American Chemical Society celebrated Goddard’s 70th birthday at its biannual national convention with a five-day symposium titled, “Bold Predictions in Theoretical Chemistry.”
The Pitzer Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry recognizes the many contributions of Russell M. Pitzer, Ph.D., professor emeritus of the department of chemistry at Ohio State.
Pitzer received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1959 and his master’s degree and doctorate in chemical physics from Harvard University in 1961 and 1963, respectively. He also completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1963. Pitzer began his teaching career at Caltech that same year, before moving to Ohio State in 1968, where he later served as chairman of the department of chemistry.
Pitzer’s doctoral thesis is considered one of the very few genuine landmarks in the history of theoretical chemistry. The pioneering research in Pitzer’s 1973 paper, “Electron Repulsion Integrals and Symmetry Adapted Charge Distributions,” enabled ab initio computations on larger molecular systems than previously possible.
In 1987, Pitzer co-founded and served as acting associate director of OSC. He also became a trustee of Pitzer College in Claremont, California, an institution that was founded by his grandfather, Russell K. Pitzer, and was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters at Pitzer College in 2003.
For more information on the Pitzer Lecture, contact the Ohio State Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at 614-292-0534 or events@chemistry.ohio-state.edu.
