CoMSEF

During the fall of 2011, we elected two new Liaison Directors. Congratulations to the newly-elected officers and thanks to all who participated!

Liaison Directors (2011-2013):

• Cynthia Lo (University of Washington in St. Louis) 
• Francisco Hung  (Louisiana State University) 

Thanks also to the two out-going Liaison Directors, Ilja Siepmann and Coray Colina, for their participation! A complete listing of the CoMSEF Executive Committee is available on the web: http://comsef.org/executivecommittee

Congratulations to the 2011 CoMSEF Graduate Student Award winners:

Andrew Paluch (University of Notre Dame)
Advisor: Ed Maginn

Lauren Abbott (Penn State University)
Advisor: Coray Colina

The CoMSEF Executive Committee is pleased to announce that Professor Bernhardt Trout of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 CoMSEF Impact Award. This annual award recognizes outstanding research in computational molecular science and engineering and will be given to Bernhardt during the CoMSEF General Meeting at the AIChE Annual meeting in Minneapolis.  He will also present a talk on his research at the CoMSEF Plenary Session at the AIChE Annual meeting.  Bernhardt is the Director of the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, Co-Chair of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Chemical and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, and a Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.  He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Bernhardt has made important contributions to the development of new computational methods, which he has then applied to the solution of important pragmatic problems; most notable is the impact of his work on the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

He is receiving the CoMSEF Impact Award “For the development of generally applicable and widely used molecular computational algorithms and their use to obtain new mechanistic understanding of industrially relevant problems.”  

CoMSEF Impact Award recipients must be within 15 years of completion of their highest degree and be current members of CoMSEF.

The April 2011 newsletter is located here: link. It contains info about New Officers, 2010 Grad Student Awards, the Impact Award, the IFPSC, a Research Highlight, FOMMS 2012, Annual Meeting Sessions, Upcoming Conferences, etc.

A post-doctoral position is open immediately in the Janik laboratory (Chemical Engineering Department, Pennsylvania State University) to investigate surface properties of high temperature CO2 adsorbents using density functional theory. This position will involve collaboration with other computational and experimental investigators, and is supported through the Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory. 

The CoMSEF Executive Committee is pleased to announce that Professor David Sholl of Georgia Tech University has been selected as the recipient of the 2010 COMSEF Early Career Award. This annual award recognizes outstanding research in computational molecular science and engineering and will be given to David during the CoMSEF annual General Meeting. David is the Michael E. Tennenbaum Family Chair and GRA Eminent Scholar in Energy Sustainability in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. He has held this position since January 2008 and was previously on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University for 10 years. He received his undergraduate degree in Physics from the Australian National University and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado. David’s research uses computational materials modeling to accelerate the development of new materials for energy-related applications, including generation and storage of gaseous and liquid fuels and carbon dioxide mitigation. David is a Senior Editor of Langmuir and is an Associate Director of the Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute. David is receiving the CoMSEF Early Career Award for his contributions to the understanding of the thermodynamics and transport properties of hydrogen in solids and of fluids confined in nanoporous materials. CoMSEF Early Career Award recipients must be within 15 years of completion of their highest degree and be current members of CoMSEF.

Congratulations to the 2010 CoMSEF Graduate Student Award winners:

Diwakar Shulka (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Advisor: Bernhardt Trout

Sumeet C. Pandey (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Advisor: Dimitrios Maroudas

The October 2010 newsletter is located here: link.  Among other content, it includes research highlights provided by Alberto Striolo and Jeff Errington and a reminder about upcoming conferences of special interest to CoMSEF members.