Appendix C
Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers and Organizing Committee Members
PLENARY SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Paul Weiss, Ph.D., University of California-Los Angeles
Paul S. Weiss holds the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences, and is a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his S.B. and S.M. degrees in chemistry from MIT in 1980 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. He was a postdoctoral member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories from 1986 to 1988 and a visiting scientist at IBM Almaden Research Center from 1988 to 1989. Before coming to UCLA in 2009, he was a distinguished professor of chemistry and physics at the Pennsylvania State University, where he began his academic career in 1989. His interdisciplinary research group includes chemists, physicists, biologists, materials scientists, mathematicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, and computer scientists. Their work focuses on the ultimate limits of miniaturization, exploring the atomic-scale chemical, physical, optical, mechanical, and electronic properties of surfaces and supramolecular assemblies. He and his students have developed new techniques to expand the applicability and chemical specificity of scanning probe microscopies. They have applied these and other tools to the study of catalysis, self- and directed assembly, and molecular and nanoscale devices. They work to advance nanofabrication down to ever smaller scales and greater chemical specificity in order to operate and to test functional molecular assemblies, and to connect these to the biological and chemical worlds. Two current major themes in his laboratory are cooperativity in functional molecules and single-molecule biological structural and functional measurements. He has over 300 publications, holds over 20 patents, and has given over 500 invited, plenary, keynote, and named lectures.
Weiss has been awarded a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991-1996), the Scanning Microscopy International Presidential Scholarship (1994), the B. F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award (1994), an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1995-1997), the American Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry (1996), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1997), and a National Science Foundation Creativity Award (1997-1999), among others. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000), the American Physical Society (2002), the American Vacuum Society (2007), the American Chemical Society (2010), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014), and an Honorary Fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society (2010). He was also elected a senior member of the IEEE (2009). He received Penn State’s University Teaching Award from the Schreyer Honors College (2004), was named one of two Nanofabrication Fellows at Penn State (2005), and won the Alpha Chi Sigma Outstanding Professor Award (2007). He was a visiting professor at the University of Washington, Department of Molecular Biotechnology from 1996 to 1997 and at the Kyoto University, Electronic Science and Engineering Department and Venture Business Laboratory in 1998 and 2000. Weiss was a member of the U.S. National Committee to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (2000-2005). He has
been the Technical Co-chair of the Foundations of Nanoscience Meetings, Thematic Chair of the Spring 2009 American Chemical Society National Meeting, and the Chair of the 2009 International Meeting on Molecular Electronics. He served as director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA (2009-2014). He was the Senior Editor of IEEE Electron Device Letters for molecular and organic electronics (2005-2007), and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of ACS Nano (2007-present). At ACS Nano, he won the Association of American Publishers, Professional Scholarly Publishing PROSE Award for 2008, Best New Journal in Science, Technology, and Medicine, and ISI’s Rising Star Award a record ten times.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Andrew Borovik, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine
Andrew Borovik, Ph.D., was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and obtained his B.S. degree in chemistry from Humboldt State University, in Arcata, California, in 1981. In 1986, he received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, under Professor Tom Sorrell. Dr. Borovik has held postdoctoral positions with Larry Que at the University of Minnesota as an NIH fellow from 1986 to 1988 and Ken Raymond at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1990 to 1992. He has been on the faculty at Ithaca College, Kansas State University, the University of Kansas, and the University of California, Irvine, where he is currently a professor. His research group has been developing new approaches in molecular design to prepare synthetic constructs that emulate the properties of protein active sites. Protein active sites have unique architectural features that control the immediate environment surrounding metal ions (microenvironment). These features, in turn, are instrumental in controlling protein activity, much of which has not yet been achieved in synthetic systems. Noncovalent interactions, particularly hydrogen bonds, have been implicated as key regulators of microenvironmental properties. However, little is known about how hydrogen bonds are able to influence metal-mediated processes. By establishing noncovalent interactions that promote the activation of small molecules, his group can control the secondary coordination sphere of metal complexes.
Jim De Yoreo, Ph.D., Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Jim De Yoreo is Chief Scientist for Materials Synthesis and Simulation Across Scales at PNNL and an affiliate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1985. Following postdoctoral work at Princeton University, he became a member of the technical staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1989, where he held numerous positions including Director of the Biosecurity and Nanosciences Laboratory, and Deputy Director of the Laboratory Science and Technology Office. He joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2007 where he served as deputy and interim director of the Molecular Foundry. De Yoreo is a member of the MRS, APS, ACS, and the AACG. He is an editor for Bioinspired Materials, associate editor-in-chief for Frontiers of Materials Science, and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Organization for Crystal Growth (IOCG). He has served as president and board member of the Materials Research Society and on committees for the National Academy of Sciences, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. Congress. De Yoreo’s research has spanned a wide range of materials-related disciplines, focusing most recently on in situ AFM and TEM investigations of interactions, assembly, and crystallization in biomolecular and biomineral systems. De Yoreo has authored, coauthored, or edited over 195 publications and patents. He is a recipient of the IOCG’s Laudise Prize, the AACG Crystal Growth Award, an R&D 100 Award, and the LLNL Science and Technology Award, and is a Fellow of the APS and the MRS.
John Spencer Evans, D.D.S., Ph.D., New York University
Dr. Evans received his B.S. degree at Northwestern University and his D.D.S. degree at the University of Illinois in 1982. After completing residency fellowships at Northwestern University Medical Center and the University of Southern California Medical Center, he obtained his Ph.D. in
chemistry at California Institute of Technology in 1993. He is currently a professor at the Center for Skeletal Sciences, New York University, and his research emphasis is on protein-mediated biomineralization phenomena.
Alexander C. Gagnon, Ph.D., University of Washington
Alexander C. Gagnon received his B.S. and B.A. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002. Remaining on the West Coast, he completed his doctorate studies under Professor Jess Adkins and Douglas Rees at California Institute of Technology with a thesis entitled, “Geochemical Mechanisms of Biomineralization from Analysis of Deep-Sea and Laboratory Cultured Corals” in 2010. From 2010 to 2013 Dr. Gagnon held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Donalad De Paolo and James De Yoreo. Gagnon was appointed assistant professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in 2013, where he is currently.
Pupa Gilbert, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Trained in physics at the First University of Rome “La Sapienza” with Filippo Conti (chemistry, physical chemistry) and Tiziana Parasassi (biology, biochemistry), Pupa Gilbert has 30 years of experience in the fascinating field of biophysics. She has been a staff scientist at the Italian CNR in 1988-1999, and at the Swiss Institute of Technology in 1994‐1998, until she joined the physics department at University of Wisconsin‐Madison in 1999 as a full professor. She won many awards in Italy, the United States, and internationally. She served as scientific director of the Synchrotron Radiation Center in 2002‐2006, on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Canadian Light Source in 2004-2009, and as chair of the Division of Biological Physics of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2010-2014. She is a fellow of the APS and of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
Sharon Glotzer, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Dr. Glotzer is the Stuart W. Churchill Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and professor of materials science and engineering, physics, applied physics, and macromolecular science and engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received a B.S. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. degree from Boston University, both in physics. Prior to joining the University of Michigan in 2001 she worked for 8 years in the Materials Science & Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as co-founder and Director of the NIST Center for Theoretical and Computational Materials Science. Glotzer’s research on computational assembly science and engineering aims toward predictive materials design of colloidal and soft matter, with current emphasis on shape, packing, and assembly pathways. She has nearly 200 refereed publications and has presented over 300 plenary, keynote, and invited talks around the world. Glotzer was the recipient of the Charles M.A. Stine Award in Materials Science and Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, holds a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and was named a 2012 Simons Investigator.
Cynthia Jenks, Ph.D., The Ames Laboratory
Dr. Cynthia Jenks is the assistant director for Scientific Planning and the division director of Chemical and Biological Science at the Ames Laboratory. She received her B.S. in chemical engineering in 1986 from the University of California, Los Angeles. She received an M.S. degree in chemical engineering in 1988 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University in 1992. She did her postdoctoral work at Iowa State University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. She joined the scientific staff of the Ames Laboratory in 1995. Her research interests are in the areas of surface structure and reactivity, surface structure–property relationships, catalysis, and thin-film growth. She is a Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Erwin London, Ph.D., Stony Brook University
Dr. London received his B.A. at Queens College of the City University of New York in 1974 and completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1980. After completing his Ph.D., London accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1980 to 1982. Since then, he has been a part of the faculty at Stony Brook University. He is currently professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and has a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry. His research group studies biomembrane protein structure and function and biomembrane lipid and protein organization by combining spectroscopic methods, such as fluorescence, with chemical, biochemical, immunochemical, and molecular biological approaches. Recent studies have concentrated upon understanding the organization of biomembranes into domains with distinct lipid and protein compositions. Biomembrane lipid segregation into domains of high structural order (lipid rafts) and lower structural order (liquid disordered domains) has become an important focus of cell membrane studies. Lab studies aim at defining the principles that underlie domain formation and developing methods to detect such domains in cells. To aid in this, the lab has developed a model biomembrane vesicle system that for the first time efficiently reproduces the lipid asymmetry (difference in lipid chemical composition) in the inner (cytoplasmic) and outer (exofacial) monolayers found in the lipid bilayers of many cell membranes.
Yi Lu, Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Yi Lu received his B.S. degree from Peking University in 1986, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1992 under Professor Joan S. Valentine. After 2 years of postdoctoral research in Professor Harry B. Gray’s group at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Lu started his own independent career in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994. He is now Jay and Ann Schenck Professor of Chemistry in the Departments of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering. He is also a member of the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His research interests lie at the interface between chemistry and biology. His group is developing new chemical approaches to provide deeper insight into biological systems. At the same time, they take advantage of recently developed biological tools to advance many areas in chemistry. Specific areas of current interests include (a) design and engineering of functional metalloproteins as environmentally benign catalysis in renewable energy generation and pharmaceuticals; (b) fundamental understanding of DNAzymes and their applications in environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics, and targeted drug delivery; and (c) employing principles from biology for directed assembly of nanomaterials with controlled morphologies and its applications in imaging and medicine.
Andrew Madden, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma
Dr. Andrew Elwood Madden is an associate professor in the School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma where he co-directs the Physical and Environmental Geochemistry Laboratory and directs the powder x-ray diffraction laboratory. His B.S. degree in geology from Michigan State University was followed by a Ph.D. in geochemistry from Virginia Tech while holding an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and postdoctoral research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In recent years, his research on nanoparticulate minerals ranged from fundamental studies comparing the size-dependent reactivity of nanoparticulate minerals in the lab and field, the formation of nanoparticulate phases of radionuclides and metals for groundwater remediation, the frictional properties of nanoparticulate rock gouge that control the behavior of fault zones in earthquakes, to nanodiamonds in natural sediments as possible indicators of an impact event at the Younger Dryas boundary, and analog studies of nanoparticulate iron oxide minerals that constrain the history of water on Mars. He also teaches courses such as physical geology, environmental
geology, minerals and the environment, and clay mineralogy.
William Noid, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
William Noid received his B.S. degree from the University of Tennessee in 2000. He moved to Ithaca to complete his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 2005 for research in quantum-classical theories of nonlinear spectroscopy. He was an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, where he worked on multiscale modeling theories with Professor G.A. Voth. He started as an assistant professor at Penn State in 2007 and was promoted to associate professor in 2013. His research at Penn State addresses theories for multiscale modeling, glycoprotein biophysics, and intrinsically disordered proteins. This work has been recognized by an ACS Hewlett Packard Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, an Alfred P Sloan Foundation fellowship, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, and an NSF Career award.
Klaus Schulten, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Klaus Schulten holds a Diplom degree in physics from the University of Muenster, Germany (1969), and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University (1974). He was junior group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut for Biophysical Chemistry from 1974 to 1980, and professor of theoretical physics at the Technical University of Munich from 1980 to 1988. Schulten came to the University of Illinois in 1988, and in 1989 joined the Beckman Institute and founded the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, which operates the NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics. Since 2008 he is co-director of the NSF-funded Center for the Physics of Living Cells. Schulten's awards and honors include a Blue Waters Professorship, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (2014); Professorship, University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study (2013); Distinguished Service Award, Biophysical Society (2013); IEEE Computer Society Sidney Fernbach Award (2012); Fellow of the Biophysical Society (2012); Award in Computational Biology (2008); Humboldt Award of the German Humboldt Foundation (2004); University of Illinois Scholar (1996); Fellow of the American Physical Society (1993); and Nernst Prize of the Physical Chemistry Society of Germany (1981).
Wendy Shaw, Ph.D., Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Dr. Wendy Shaw received her B.A. in chemistry from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 2000. Soon after, she landed a position at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state, where her research interests are in the areas of catalysis and biomineralization. In catalysis, she is interested in understanding the contribution of the outer coordination sphere to organometallic catalysis by incorporating enzymatic features of the protein scaffold into homogeneous catalysts. The features of the outer coordination sphere being investigated include dynamics, the local environment around the active site and the function of proton channels. Dynamics are being studied with novel stimuli controlled ligands for catalyst control, development, and recovery. The role of the environment around the active site and the role of proton channels are being investigated with a combined computational and experimental approach building around nickel-based hydrogen production/oxidation catalysts which mimic hydrogenase enzymes. Her interests in biomineralization processes include developing a fundamental understanding of protein–surface interfaces and biomineralization processes using solid-state NMR dipolar recoupling techniques, neutron reflectivity, and physical chemistry methods, specifically, elucidating the protein structure, protein orientation and nucleation and growth mechanisms of naturally occurring biominerals. Broader implications include understanding nonnatural systems such as protein–polymer interactions, coatings, and tissue engineering. She has received several honorable awards including the Graduate Fellowship, Associated Western Universities from 1996 to 2000, Outstanding Performance Awards, PNNL, the DOE Early Career Program Grant, 2010, and was selected to attend the U.S.-Indonesia Symposium in 2011.
Peter Stair, Ph.D., Northwestern University
Peter C. Stair is the John G. Searle Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. He received a B.S. in chemistry from Stanford University in 1972 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1977 under the supervision of Gabor Somorjai. He has been on the faculty at Northwestern University since 1977. From 1997 to 2012 he was director of the Northwestern University Center for Catalysis and Surface Science. He is director of the institute for catalysis in energy processes, a senior scientist in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory, and Deputy Director of the Energy Frontier Research Center: Institute for Atom-efficient Chemical Transformations. His research interests are in the synthesis, characterization, and physical properties of heterogeneous catalysts. He has worked in surface science and in situ Raman spectroscopy. His goal is to develop fundamental understanding in catalysis science that leads to advances in industrial chemistry and energy technology. He is a past recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award and recipient of the 2010 ACS George Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry.
Gregory Voth, Ph.D., University of Chicago
Dr.Voth is the Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He is also a professor of the James Franck Institute and the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, as well as a senior fellow of the Computation Institute. He received a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1987 and was an IBM postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1987 to 1989. He is the author or coauthor of approximately 425 peer-reviewed scientific articles, with an h-index of 78 and more than 22,000 citations. Voth is a fellow of the American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, The Biophysical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received a number of awards and other forms of recognition for his work, including most recently the American Chemical Society Division of Physical Chemistry Award in Theoretical Chemistry and Election to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, both in 2013. He has proudly mentored more than 160 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students.
Professor Voth is a leader in the development and application of theoretical and computational methods to study problems involving the structure and dynamics of complex condensed phase systems, including proteins, membranes, liquids, and materials. He has pioneered a method known as “multiscale coarse graining” in which the resolution of the molecular-scale entities is reduced into simpler structures, but key information on their interactions is accurately retained (or renormalized) so the resulting computer simulation can accurately and efficiently predict the properties of large assemblies of complex molecules such as lipids and proteins. This method is multiscale, meaning it describes complex condensed phase and biomolecular systems from the molecular scale to the mesoscale and ultimately to the macroscopic scale. Professor Voth’s other research interests include the study of charge transport (protons and electrons) in water and biomolecules—a fundamental process in living organisms and other systems that has been poorly understood because of its complexity. He also studies the exotic behavior of room-temperature ionic liquids and other complex materials such a nanoparticle self-assembly, polymer electrolyte membranes for fuel cells, and electrode–electrolyte interfaces in energy storage devices. In the earlier part of his career, Professor Voth extensively developed and applied new methods to study quantum and electron transfer dynamics in condensed phase systems. Much of this work was based on the Feynman path integral description of quantum mechanics.
Aaron Wheeler, Ph.D., University of Toronto
Dr. Wheeler completed his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2003, working with Dick Zare at Stanford University. After graduating, Aaron spent 2 years as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at UCLA. Since 2005, Aaron has been the Canada Research Chair of Bioanalytical Chemistry at the University of Toronto, with a primary appointment in the Chemistry Department and cross-appointments at the Institute for Biomaterials and Bioengineering and the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research. Wheeler has been recognized internationally with a number of awards, including
the Merck GmbH H.E.M. Prize and the American Chemical Society Arthur F. Findeis Award, and he is an Associate Editor of Lab on a Chip.
Benjamin Wilhite, Ph.D., Texas A&M University
Dr. Wilhite completed his doctoral research at Notre Dame. His focus included emphasizing reactor design and multiphase flow. From there, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT where he focused upon catalytic microreactors and micromembranes for energy applications. He began his academic career at the University of Connecticut from 2005 to 2010 and is currently a professor at Texas A&M University. His work centers on understanding interplay between transport phenomena, materials science, and catalysis for designing membranes and microreactors for natural gas processing.
Todd Yeates, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Yeates earned his bachelor's degree at UCLA in 1983. He stayed on at UCLA and earned his Ph.D. in 1988 while doing research under the direction of Professor Douglas Rees. There he helped determine the crystal structure of the bacterial photosynthetic reaction center as part of a team racing to determine the first crystal structures of membrane proteins. He then moved to The Scripps Research Institute to do his postdoctoral research on the structure of poliovirus with Professor James Hogle. Yeates returned to UCLA in 1990 to join the faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His interdisciplinary research, combining molecular biology with computing and mathematics, has focused on structural, computational, and synthetic biology.
Past research findings in the Yeates lab include an explanation for why proteins crystallize in certain favored arrangements, with implications for the development of racemic macromolecular crystallography; the development of equations for detecting disorder in x-ray diffraction data from protein crystals; the discovery that certain thermophilic microbes are rich in intracellular disulfide bonds; development of comparative genomics methods; and the discovery of novel topological features such as links and slipknots, with implications for protein folding landscapes. Recent work has focused on giant protein assemblies, both natural and designed. In the area of giant natural protein assemblies, Yeates' group has pioneered the structural biology of the carboxysome and related bacterial microcompartments. These are primitive metabolic organelles in many bacteria, wherein a protein shell (reminiscent of a viral capsid) encloses a series of enzymes in order to sequester a sensitive pathway within the bacterial cell. In the area of designed protein assemblies, Yeates' group has laid out symmetry-based strategies for engineering novel protein molecules to self-assemble into precisely defined symmetric nanocages and materials, and has demonstrated their successful application to creating cubic assemblies on the 15- to 20-nm scale. Yeates is a member of the Molecular Biology Institute, the California Nanosystems Institute, the UCLA-DOE Institute of Genomics and Proteomics, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES
Miguel Garcia-Garibay* (co-chair) has been a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry since 1992. He came to UCLA after doing postdoctoral research at Columbia University, which followed his Ph.D. studies at the University of British Columbia, in Canada. The earlier portions of Dr. Garcia-Garibay’s education were completed in his native Mexico, at the Universidad Michoacana, where he did research on natural product isolation and characterization. Dr. Garcia-Garibay was promoted to full professor in the year 2000 and he has served as Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry since 2005. Dr. Garcia-Garibay is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and the Journal of Organic Chemistry. He has been a member of the CNSI since 2005. His current research efforts are aimed at the development of artificial molecular machinery in highly organized crystalline media, and to the development of green chemistry by taking advantage of organic reactions in molecular nanocrystals.
Patricia A. Thiel* (co-chair) is the John D. Corbett Professor of Chemistry, and a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Materials Science & Engineering at Iowa State University. She is also a faculty scientist in the Ames Laboratory. She is active in research, teaching, and administration. In research, she is known for her work in three main areas: nanostructure evolution on surfaces, surface properties and structures of quasicrystals (a complex type of metallic alloy), and the chemistry of water adsorbed on metal surfaces. Thiel is an enthusiastic teacher of physical chemistry. She has held several administrative posts, including chair of the Department of Chemistry. Thiel earned her B.A. in chemistry from Macalester College, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1981. After postdoctoral work at the University of Munich as a von Humboldt Fellow, she joined the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, then moved to Iowa State University in 1983. In her early academic career, Thiel was recognized with awards from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and by a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. Later, she received the American Chemical Society’s Arthur W. Adamson Award, and the American Physical Society’s David J. Adler Lectureship. She was also named Fellow of several societies: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society, and the American Vacuum Society.
Vernon Anderson earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia (1977) and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981) followed by postdoctoral research at Cornell University. He was an assistant professor and associate professor of organic chemistry at Brown University studying enzymes of fatty acid metabolism. After moving to Case Western Reserve University as professor of biochemistry and chemistry he specialized in using stable isotopes to characterize enzyme reactions, metabolism, and protein modifications along with continued interests in kinetic and spectroscopic analyses of enzyme reactions. In 2009 he moved to the NIH to become a program director in the Division of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry where he administers grants in the areas of bioinorganic chemistry, redox enzymology, mitochondrial electron transport, and other aspects of bioenergetics.
Bruce Garrett is responsible for the leadership, management, and operations of the Physical Sciences Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The focus of research in the division is on developing tools and understanding required to control chemical and physical processes in condensed phases and at complex interfaces. Dr. Garrett has been involved in research in the field of theoretical physical chemistry since the 1970s. His major research accomplishments have been in the area of reaction rate theory, including the development of theoretical methods for predicting rates of chemical reactions. This research contributed to the development of variational transition state theory into a practical, reliable method for including important quantum mechanical effects into calculations of rate constants for gas-phase chemical reactions. Dr. Garrett’s research focus in the past several years has been to extend these methods to treat chemical reactions in condensed phase and interfacial systems. His current research interests include developing theoretical methods for including the effects of molecular environment (liquids, solids, and interfaces) on the rates of chemical reaction, advancing molecular theories to describe the kinetics of gas-to-particle nucleation, and understanding the molecular-level structure and energetics of liquid interfaces that will allow a detailed description of the transfer of molecules between phases. Before joining PNNL in 1989, Dr. Garrett cofounded Chemical Dynamics Corporation where he managed and conducted fundamental research. At PNNL, he was Technical Group Leader for Molecular Theory & Modeling from 1989 to 2002, and Associate Director for Molecular Interactions & Transformations from 2002 to 2005, before becoming Director of the Physical Sciences Division.
Jennifer Sinclair Curtis* is Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering at the University of Florida (UF). Professor Curtis received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Purdue University (1983) and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton University (1989). She has an internationally recognized research program in the development and validation of numerical models for the prediction of particle flow phenomena. She is the coauthor of over 100 publications and has given over 160 invited lectures at universities, companies, government laboratories, and technical conferences. Professor Curtis is a recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar Award, an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, the American Society of Engineering Education’s (ASEE’s) Chemical Engineering Lectureship Award, the Eminent Overseas Lectureship Award by the Institution of Engineers in Australia, the ASEE’s Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering, and the AIChE Fluidization Lectureship Award. She currently serves on the Governing Board of the Council for Chemical Research and as co-chair of the National Academies’ Chemical Sciences Roundtable. She is also associate editor of the AIChE Journal and on the editorial advisory board of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Powder Technology, and Chemical Engineering Education. She has served on the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE’s) Committee on Engineering Education and has participated in two NAE Frontiers of Research Symposiums (2003 and 2008). She is a Fellow of AAAS, AIChE, and ASEE.
*Denotes member of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable
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