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Biography of Keith E. Gubbins In 2002, Peter Cummings and George Jackson teamed up to produce a special issue of Molecular Physics to mark the 65th birthday of Keith Gubbins. It was a marvellous set of issues, with world-wide and world class contributions and a very appropriate and timely memento. For anyone who did not know Keith well enough, it may have seemed a sign of his fading out as researcher; an anticipation of his retirement. Some of us knew better, and five years later we arrive at his 70th birthday to find Keith as strong, both physically and intellectually, as ever. The year 2005 alone showcased his largest scientific output, a total of 22 publications worth over 1170 citations! The foreword of the above mentioned issues gave an excellent account of Keith’s academic career, from his initial years at Florida, where the foundations of the theory of statistical mechanics of fluids was beautifully set out in the textbook with Tim Reed (Applied Statistical Mechanics), and in the Gray and Gubbins monograph (Theory of Molecular Fluids). The Cornell years were marked by arguably having one of the strongest molecular simulation groups in the world at the time, with researchers like Paulette Clancy, Thanasis Panagiotopoulos, and Keith in chemical engineering and Ben Widom in chemistry interacting in the same environment. Keith’s group was the birthplace of the SAFT equation of state, which is now recognized, in its many versions, as the foremost modelling tool for fluid phase equilibria. Keith’s move to North Carolina State University in the late 1990’s only served to fuel his passion for research, particularly in the area of phase behavior of confined fluids and adsorption in nanoporous materials, and more recently in the area of surfactants and chemical reactions on surfaces. A simple online search gives a detailed account of Keith’s scientific prowess and shows in excess of 368 papers, 13,888
citations, and 37.74 average citations per item with an h-index of 60: all impressive metrics. In spite of the above, we felt that it would be redundant to elaborate on his career as a scientist, for that aspect of him is rather well-known. Moreover, we wanted to celebrate one of the perhaps less awarded, but not less important, aspects of Keith: his human nature. Anyone who has worked with him will recognize this in several ways. Several hundred researchers worldwide have been either in direct contact with him or related through their supervisors or colleagues. He counts during the last 30 years 48 postdoctoral associates and 42 Ph.D. students. The photographs of his group along the years give faith to the fact that it has always been quite populated, not only with students, but also with postdoctoral associates and visiting researchers. Some of the most constructive lessons learned by his students were the values of cooperation and of the interchange of ideas. Keith has, through the years, kept an extended group seminar series which has showcased over 100 eminent speakers in statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, molecular simulation, material science, physics, and chemistry. Aside from being a collector of scientific books and ancient clocks and an expert birdwatcher, Keith is an avid world traveller and, as such, has used this interest and served as an unselfish catalyser for many interactions between research groups in all continents (except Antartica). Both of us first met Keith in Venezuela, some 20 (E.A.M.) and 10 (C.M.C.) years ago. He had been invited to Venezuela to give lectures on the new developments of molecular simulation to groups of undergraduates, graduate students, and lecturers. Being such a busy scholar as he is, it was an honor, and actually a surprise, that he could take time from his schedule to fly to Caracas and share some
10.1021/jp079547r CCC: $37.00 © 2007 American Chemical Society Published on Web 10/25/2007
15480 J. Phys. Chem. C, Vol. 111, No. 43, 2007 time with us. His first trip (more than 20 years ago) initiated a fruitful relationship where, thanks to him, six researchers from Venezuela pursued Ph.D.s and postdoctorals in his group, some of which now have esteemed academic positions worldwide. This example has parallels in many other countries, such as Australia, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Japan, Poland, Spain, and United Kingdom, to name some. Keith has given more than 800 presentations amongst invited lectures and conferences worldwide. Keith has always given his students his unconditional support and not only has helped them through the hardships of graduate studies, but also has guided them appropriately into the selection of their further careers. Moreover, it is common for him to keep track of his former students and collaborators. A unique feature of his research group has always been the fact that he has stimulated and given opportunities to people from around the world, not only to interact with his group but also to interact amongst themselves. Thus, today, and partly because of this vision, his research group is at the top of the list of the most prestigious ones in the field of statistical mechanics and molec-
ular simulation in the world. This Festschrift gives faith to that, as contributions have come from distant places on the planet. We do not wish to demerit any of the other aspects of Keith’s recent career during these past five years, such as the development of new courses, including some state-of-the-art video courses; his lectures on multi-scale modeling of fluids given at NCSU in 2004 were recorded on video and have been accessed by a large number of researchers in the field of soft matter. Also during the past quinquennium, he has received other measures of esteem; he has been elected as Fellow of the AIChE and granted the prestigious Hildebrand award of the ACS. He has not neglected his services to the community, as illustrated by his current co-direction of the Center for High Performance Simulation (CHiPS). Finally, we wish to thank the many people who sent papers to this issue and acknowledge that many others could not send them in spite of having wished to do so. Furthermore, we sincerely apologize for any omissions. Search performed in the ISI Web of Science on July 20, 2007, spanning from 1970 until 2007.
Erich A. Mu1 ller Imperial College London
Coray M. Colina PennsylVania State UniVersity
