I enjoy teaching and studying
physical chemistry and chemical physics. My research efforts up to
now have concentrated on intermolecular forces; the questions are
"What are the shapes of small molecules? How sticky or hard are they?
What are the forces that push them around?" I have used both
experiments (primarily based on molecular beams and lasers) and
calculations to try to answer these questions.
I also enjoy playing pool. The photograph at left was taken by Bernadine Carey-Tucker for a piece in Grand Valley Magazine.
I have research projects in progress in the following areas:
All three projects are up and running; two students were working on them during the 2008/2009 academic year. During summer 2009 I am working with a student on computational projects. I am interested in accepting students for all three projects in fall 2009.
The primary instrument used in our spectroscopic work is a very high spectral resolution, high sensitivity, absorption spectrometer that works in the region of 1600 nm. Its light source is an external cavity diode laser. It can use several different detection schemes. The dual beam direct absorption and the wavelength modulation modes are working now. A multipass Herriot cell is currently being constructed.
The mass spec project began in January 2007. The instrument has been built and is working. It can use either gaseous samples or solid samples by laser desorption and ionization. The next phase is to develop methods of space focusing, to improve the resolution limit caused by the finite spatial volume of ion creation.
Students with interests in computational work and computer programming may enjoy computational projects. These projects are not "quantum chemistry" in the sense of electronic structure calculations, but involve dynamics and kinetics calculations that describe the motions of the atoms during collisions and reactions. We use both classical and quantum mechanical models. For the calculations we use the computational cluster in the chemistry department and national supercomputer facilities. Several projects involve collaborations with experimental and theoretical research groups around the world.
Imsim, and its accompanying image fitting program (never released publicly) have returned to active development as of August 2008 after a dormant period of several years. If you are interested in them, please contact me by email so I can let you know about recent developments.
Last modified: Wed Jun 03 08:48:41 -0400 2009