Department of Chemistry

chemistry, prof, seminar, physical, inorganic

Seattle, Washington — Pacific Time

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Physical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Mark Gordon

Physical Seminars "The Effective Fragment Potential: A Gateway to Chemical Insight and High-Performance Computing" Professor Mark Gordon - Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University Host: Anne McCoy The effective fragment potential (EFP) is an ab initio force field that is derived entirely from quantum mechanics with no empirically fitted parameters. Intermolecular interactions predicted by the EFP method are comparable in accuracy to that of second order perturbation theory (MP2) and close to that of coupled cluster (CC) theory. Combining the EFP method with the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method yields the effective fragment molecular orbital (EFMO) method, a highly accurate QM/MM fragmentation method that has been applied to molecular systems with tens of thousands of electrons and can therefore take advantage of the world’s most powerful (exascale) computers. Following a brief introduction to the EFP, FMO and EFMO methods, some interesting applications will be presented. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Wednesday, October 7, 2026, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM. For more info visit www.chem.iastate.edu.

Chemistry Faculty Meeting

*Executive Session only. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: Veronica Howell, atchmchr@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings. Event sponsors: For assistance, please contact Veronica Howell, atchmchr@uw.edu or 206.543.1611. Target Audience: Faculty. Thursday, October 8, 2026, 3:30 AM – 5:00 AM.

Physical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Gary Douberly

Physical Seminars "Spectroscopy of Molecular Aggregates in Helium Droplets." Professor Gary E. Douberly - Department of Chemistry, Washington State University Host: Anne McCoy The first beam of helium droplets was reported in the 1961 paper Strahlen aus kondensiertem Helium im Hochvakuum by Von E. W. Becker and co-workers [1]. However, molecular spectroscopy of helium-solvated dopants wasn't realized until 30 years later in the laboratories of Scoles and Toennies [2,3]. It has now been over three decades since this early, seminal work on doped helium droplets, yet the field of helium droplet spectroscopy remains fresh with significant potential for addressing a diverse set of problems in molecular science. Analogous in many ways to cryogenic matrix isolation spectroscopy, the helium droplet is an ideal environment to spectroscopically probe difficult to prepare molecular species, such as radicals, carbenes and ions. The quantum nature of helium at 0.4 K often results in molecular spectra that are sufficiently resolved to… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Wednesday, October 14, 2026, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM. For more info visit chem.wsu.edu.

Chemistry Faculty Meeting

Inorganic Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Chung-Wei Kung

Inorganic Seminars "Electrochemistry Meets Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs) – Roles of Electrochemically Inactive Frameworks" Professor Chung-Wei Kung - Department of Chemical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan Host: Dianne Xiao The development of clean energy has gained more and more attention in recent years, and electrochemical technologies play an important role in a range of clear-energy applications. The design and synthesis of highly active electrode materials, namely, the active thin film modified on the electrode surface that can facilitate the desired electrochemical reaction, are thus crucial for the development of high-performance electrochemical devices toward energy and environmental applications. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), also known as porous coordination polymers (PCPs), are thus highly attractive for electrochemical systems owing to their ultrahigh specific surface area, tunable pore structure in the molecular scale, and tunable chemical functionality within the nanopores. However, the… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Bagley Hall (BAG). Campus room: BAG 260. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM. For more info visit che.ncku.edu.tw.

Weston T. and Sheila Borden Endowed Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry: Prof. Ned Sibert

Physical Seminars Weston T. and Sheila Borden Endowed Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry "Exploring the CH Stretch Spectral Region with Local Mode Hamiltonians" Professor Emeritus Ned Sibert - Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison Host: Anne McCoy The CH spectral region has often been assumed to be so congested and plagued with resonant interactions that there is little information or conformational content to be gleaned from the spectra. We have recently challenged this assumption. A key to our success has been the ability of the Zwier group to obtain conformer specific vibrational spectra at low temperatures. These spectra have been used to obtain empirical scaling factors that, when applied to our density functional based model Hamiltonians, lead to results that allow one to fully extract the information embedded in the molecular spectra. We have developed this Hamiltonian, which has Huckel-like simplicity, to understand the spectroscopy of a broad range of molecules and clusters so that we can predict… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Bagley Hall (BAG). Campus room: BAG 260. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Event sponsors: This lecture is supported by the Weston and Sheila Borden Endowed Fund in Chemistry, established by the Bordens in 2015. Weston T. Borden served on the University of Washington chemistry faculty for 31 years. His research involved the use of molecular orbital (MO) theory and MO-based calculations to understand and predict the structures and reactions of organic and organometallic molecules. Sheila Borden received her B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. After a y… Wednesday, October 21, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM. For more info visit chem.wisc.edu.

Chemistry Faculty Meeting

*Executive Session Only. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: Veronica Howell, atchmchr@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings. Event sponsors: For assistance, please contact Veronica Howell, atchmchr@uw.edu or 206.543.1611. Target Audience: Faculty. Thursday, October 22, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.

Chemistry Education Seminar: Prof. Thom Dunning

Careers in Chemistry "The Chemical Bond: A New Perspective" Affiliate Professor Thom Dunning - Department of Chemistry, University of Washington Host: Lutz Maibaum Numerous studies have shown that undergraduate chemistry students, and even many chemistry graduate students, have misconceptions about the chemical bond.1 A striking example is the belief that the Octet Rule is responsible for the formation of chemical bonds. The misconceptions are due, in large part, to the difficulty associated with the unusual nature of quantum mechanics—the physics underlying the structure of atoms and molecules—which describes electrons as “clouds” not particles, and the difficulties this poses for teaching about chemical bonding. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of a new perspective on the chemical bond that arises from the advances made by quantum chemists over the past thirty years. This new perspective is based on Spin-Coupled Generalized Valence Bond (SCGVB) theory,2,3 which addresses the most serious limitations of both… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Meetings. Lectures/Seminars. Monday, October 26, 2026, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM. For more info visit chem.washington.edu.

Chemistry Faculty Meeting

George H. Cady Endowed Lecture in Inorganic Chemistry: Prof. Ram Seshadri

Inorganic Seminars George H. Cady Endowed Lecture in Inorganic Chemistry "Discovering Compounds and Designing Materials" Professor Ram Seshadri - Materials Department and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara Host: Douglas Reed In the literature, there has been a tendency to label extended crystalline compounds somewhat inaccurately as materials, but materials are usually only those compounds that display some useful functionality. Moreover, real materials are rarely pure compounds when employed in real-world applications. It is also of interest to note that the synthesis of chemical compounds often predates the discovery of the key functionality that would allow the compound to be declared a material, sometimes by several decades. It is more often the case therefore, that compounds that have been previously synthesized are screened for their function. I will discuss approaches to the synthesis of new compounds (using examples of halide perovskites and double perovskites), and how… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Bagley Hall (BAG). Campus room: BAG 260. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Event sponsors: The George H. Cady Endowed Lectureship in Chemistry was established in memory of Prof. Cady by his family and many friends and colleagues in 1994. George H. Cady earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1930 under the direction of Joel H. Hildebrand. Cady held positions at the University of South Dakota, M.I.T. U.S. Rubber Company, and Pittsburgh Plate Glass before joining the UW as assistant professor in 1938. He worked on the Man… Monday, November 2, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM. For more info visit www.chem.ucsb.edu.

Inorganic Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Ram Seshadri

Inorganic Seminars "Rapid, High-Temperature Microwave Synthesis of Useful Materials" Professor Ram Seshadri - Materials Department and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara Host: Douglas Reed I will introduce assisted microwave methods for high-temperature reactions and describe how they have accelerated the preparation of phosphor, thermoelectric, magnetic, and battery materials in my research group over the years. In contrast to microwave heating for solution reactions, these are techniques that employ domestic (≈$100) microwave ovens to readily achieve temperatures as high as 1400°C in minutes. In this talk, I will focus on the preparation of battery electrodes materials for Li–ion and Na–ion batteries. I will close with a description of how these microwave methods are being scaled for industrial use. Ram Seshadri received a Ph.D. in solid state chemistry in 1995 from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, working with Professor C. N. R. Rao FRS. After some years as a… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Bagley Hall (BAG). Campus room: BAG 260. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Tuesday, November 3, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM. For more info visit www.chem.ucsb.edu.

Physical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Tim Zuehlsdorff

Physical Seminars "Modeling optical properties of molecules in complex environments using tensor-network approaches" Assistant Professor Tim Zuehlsdorff - Department of Chemistry, Oregon State University Host: Xiaosong Li Theoretical spectroscopy plays a crucial role in understanding light-driven properties of materials and molecules. Truly predictive modeling of optical properties of systems in the condensed phase, such as solvated molecules, is however highly challenging, as direct couplings of the electronic states to the complex environment must be accounted for. Additionally, non-Condon effects due to vibrationally induced symmetry-breaking, or nonadiabatic effects due to multiple explicitly coupled electronic excited states influence light-induced energy relaxation dynamics in a wide range of molecular systems and are notoriously difficult to model. In this talk, I discuss a dynamic approach recently developed in our group to address this challenge, that is based on sampling fluctuations of the excitation energies and… Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM. For more info visit science.oregonstate.edu.

MS in Applied Chemical Science & Technology Program

STEM undergraduates are invited to learn about the Department of Chemistry Master of Science in Applied Chemical Science and Technology (MSACST) program. The application for starting in Autumn 2027 or Winter 2028 is open. Priority Consideration deadline: January 31, 2027 UW students may apply as Combined Undergraduate and Graduate (CUG) students and potentially apply up to 12 credits of 400-level chemistry courses toward the degree. The session will cover the program and degree requirements. Refreshments will be provided. MSACST prepares students for advanced graduate studies and careers in biotech, pharmaceuticals, clean energy, and related fields using cutting-edge chemical and data science tools. See our website for alumni careers and outcomes https://www.appliedchem.uw.edu/careers-outcomes. Questions? Contact MSACST director Sharon Durfy at acstadvising@uw.edu. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: Sharon Durfy. Event Types: Academics. Information Sessions. Target Audience: Undergraduate Students. Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM. For more info visit www.appliedchem.uw.edu.

Veterans Day

No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm. Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Autumn. Event Types: Academics. Wednesday, November 11, 2026. For more info visit www.washington.edu.

Organic Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Green Ahn

Organic Seminars "TBD" Assistant Professor Green Ahn - Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington Host: Dustin Maly. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Academics. Thursday, November 12, 2026, 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM. For more info visit sites.uw.edu.

Physical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Hsing-Ta Chen

Physical Seminars Assistant Professor Hsing-Ta (Theta) Chen - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame Host: David Masiello. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM. For more info visit chemistry.nd.edu.

Thanksgiving Day

No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm. Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Autumn. Event Types: Academics. Thursday, November 26, 2026. For more info visit www.washington.edu.

Native American Heritage Day

No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm. Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Autumn. Event Types: Academics. Friday, November 27, 2026. For more info visit www.washington.edu.

MS in Applied Chemical Science & Technology Program

Go to the Online Meeting Link in this listing to RSVP and obtain the Zoom link for this info session. STEM undergraduates are invited to learn about the Department of Chemistry Master of Science in Applied Chemical Science and Technology (MSACST) program. The application for starting in Autumn 2027 or Winter 2028 is open. Priority Consideration deadline: January 31, 2027. MSACST prepares students for advanced graduate studies and careers in biotech, pharmaceuticals, clean energy, and related fields using cutting-edge chemical and data science tools. See our website for alumni careers and outcomes https://www.appliedchem.uw.edu/careers-outcomes. The information session will cover the program requirements, research options, career pathways, and more. Bring your questions! We look forward to meeting you. Questions? Contact MSACST director Sharon Durfy at acstadvising@uw.edu. Event interval: Single day event. Online Meeting Link: https://www.appliedchem.uw.edu/admissions/events. Accessibility Contact: Sharon Durfy. Event Types: Academics. Information Sessions. Target Audience: Undergraduate STEM Students. Wednesday, December 2, 2026, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM. Online, register at Online Meeting Link to receive Zoom link. For more info visit www.appliedchem.uw.edu.

Physical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Zhou Lin

Physical Seminars Assistant Professor Zhou Lin - Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Amherst Host: Anne McCoy. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Chemistry Building (CHB). Campus room: CHB 102. Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Wednesday, December 9, 2026, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM. For more info visit www.umass.edu.

Christmas Day

No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm. Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2027. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics. Friday, December 25, 2026. For more info visit www.washington.edu.

New Year's Day

No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm. Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2027. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics. Friday, January 1, 2027. For more info visit www.washington.edu.