New directions in molecular scattering Faraday Discussion

Alec Wodtke is an experimental chemist working on chemical reaction dynamics. He was an Asst. Prof. at UCSB where he developed methods for studying gas-phase collision dynamics of highly vibrationally excited molecules. This produced results on topics ranging from the quantum nature of chemical isomerization, to the role of hot molecules in stratospheric ozone production. He received several awards for his work and advanced to tenured Assoc. Prof. and then Full Prof., eventually becoming Chemistry department Chairman. In 2010, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professor award and moved to Germany to become a Max Planck Director and University Professor in Göttingen. Here, he established the Department of Dynamics at Surfaces, which explores a wide variety of problems in fundamental surface chemistry emphasizing interactions between experiment and theory. He was also honored with the 2022 Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award.

Mark Brouard is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and a Tutorial Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. Between 2015 and 2023 he was the Head of the Department of Chemistry. He runs a research group in experimental Physical Chemistry investigating a mix of fundamental and more applied problems. He has a particular interest in studying the detailed mechanisms of gas phase reaction and photodissociation processes. In addition to his work on stereodynamical effects in chemical reactions, his group helped to develop a novel CMOS based imaging sensor that can be used for a range of applications, particularly for correlated imaging and imaging mass spectrometry applications. Further information about the research interests of his group can be found on his webpage.
 

As a lecturer at the University Institute of Technology, I started with kinetic studies (branching rate at room temperature and velocity coefficient at low temperatures). My research now focuses on the dynamics of reactive or inelastic collisions of interest for astrophysics (studies performed in a crossed molecular beam machine). She is an expert for the KIDA astrochemistry database and a member of the EMAA steering committee.

Helen Chadwick completed both her MChem and PhD at the University of Oxford, on stereodynamic effects in gas phase scattering. She then moved to the Group for Gas-Surface Dynamics at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland to perform quantum state resolved gas-surface reactivity experiments. Helen was awarded a 2 year Advanced Postdoc Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to join the Theoretical Chemistry group at Leiden University where she performed calculations of gas-surface reactivity. After this, she took her current position as a senior post-doctoral researcher in the Surface Dynamics group at Swansea University.
 
The focus of her research is the development of both the experimental and analytical methods associated with the unique magnetic manipulation technique the group uses to control and manipulate the rotational orientation and nuclear spin projection states of closed shell ground state molecules both before and after a collision with a surface. Projects that she has worked on include the rotational orientation dependence of both the elastic and inelastic scattering of hydrogen from surfaces, studying the energy transfer between a molecule and surface with high resolution and investigating whether nuclear spin-conversion or nuclear spin-flips can occur in a single gas-surface collision.

Bin Jiang is Professor of Chemical Physics at University of Science and Technology of China since 2016. He received his Ph.D. degree from Nanjing University in 2012 and worked with Prof. Hua Guo at University of New Mexico as a postdoctoral fellow in 2012-2015. His current interests include the development of machine learning potential energy surfaces for molecular, condensed phase, and interficial systems, first-principles scattering dynamics on the energy transfer at the gas-surface interface. He received the Chinese Chemical Society Tang Ao-Chin Youth Award on Theoretical Chemistry in 2021.

Dr. Geert-Jan Kroes obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1990 at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), working under the supervision of Prof. R.P.H. Rettschnick. He worked as a post-doc with David Clary from 1990 to 1992 (Cambridge, UK), and with Marc van Hemert and Ewine van Dishoeck from 1992 to 1993 (Leiden, The Netherlands). He worked as a KNAW-fellow at the Free University of Amsterdam and at Leiden University from 1993-1998. At Leiden he became Assistant Professor in 1998, and Full Professor in 2003. His research is focused on reactive scattering of molecules from metal surfaces.

Heather Lewandowski received her B.S. in physics from Michigan Tech in 1997 and her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado in 2002. She was then an NRC Postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. She is currently a professor and associate chair of physics at the University of Colorado, and a fellow of JILA. She leads two research programs, one in experimental molecular physics, and the other in physics education research. Her molecular physics research efforts focus on studying interactions and reactions of cold, chemically important molecules and ions. Her physics education research program studies ways to increase students’ proficiency in scientific practices such as using models and quantitative reasoning in experimental physics.

Gil Nathanson received his PhD degree under the direction of Gary McClelland at Harvard University, studying intramolecular vibration-rotation energy transfer in isolated molecules.  He then moved to Berkeley to work with Yuan Lee and his students, where he collaborated in experiments involving photodissociation and crossed molecular beam scattering.  He started his independent career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988.  Gil and his students currently investigate the surface chemistry of water using aqueous microjets in vacuum.  These gas-microjet scattering experiments span reactions of surface solvated electrons, aerosol-mediated transformations of atmospheric gases, and super-Maxwellian helium evaporation.  Gil frequently teaches general chemistry, and he and his students lead hands-on outreach activities involving soap bubbles and surfactants.

Kang-Kuen Ni is the T. W. Richards Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at Harvard. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her group develops techniques to bring selected molecules to a standstill and new interrogation schemes to study quantum nature, such as entanglements, in reactions. Her group uses molecules as quantum building blocks of complex systems and harnesses reactions for quantum resources.

Roland Wester received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Heidelberg in 1999 for Coulomb explosion imaging experiments of molecular ions. After a postdoc at the University of California in Berkeley and several years at the University of Freiburg he became a full professor at the University of Innsbruck. His research lies in the field of molecular spectroscopy and reaction dynamics, with a focus on cold collisions and reactions of ions.