Special Issue Preface pubs.acs.org/JPCA
From Quantum Mechanics to Molecular Mechanics: A Tribute to Kenneth D. Jordan free to undertake such a venture. This initial collaborative undertaking began a strong and enduring series of scholarly and personal (hiking, camping, skiing, etc.) interactions between them. Jack mentioned that “I have benefitted from these encounters as much as any I have experienced with another scientist. I find Ken to have great scientific insight and to possess an encyclopedic body of knowledge about chemistry, both of which I have taken advantage of on many occasions.” Immediately after obtaining his Ph.D. in 1975, Ken Jordan joined the faculty at the Department of Engineering and Applied Science at Yale as a Gibbs Instructor. Later, he became an assistant professor in the same department. At Yale, through his interactions with George Schultz and Paul Burrow, Ken began his fascination with temporary anions, which is a major area of interest in his group to this day. It is also an area of interest shared by us (Jack, Mark, and Feng). Around that time, Ken developed an interest in electron transmission spectroscopy (ETS), one of the most powerful experimental probes of temporary anions. Ken Jordan joined the faculty at University of Pittsburgh in 1978. At Pitt, he developed research programs in both theoretical and experimental chemistry. The major tool on the experimental front was ETS, which he learned about from his interactions with the Schultz and Burrow groups at Yale. This line of work led to a very influential set of experiments carried out in collaboration with Michael Paddon-Row, where they monitored electron capture onto degenerate π-orbitals in rigid organic scaffolds. The concepts formulated in understanding these scattering states secured Jordan’s place as a pioneer in understanding slow electron interactions and capture into low-lying empty molecular orbitals. During the 1990s, he expanded his research interest to water clusters and surface chemistry with graduate students Chung-Jung Tsai and Petr Nachtigall leading these new thrusts. With a full plate of exciting theoretical advances to attend to, Ken wound down his experimental program. The water cluster projects paved the way for collaborative studies with Tim Zwier starting in 1994. From 1994 to 1995, Jordan spent 8 months as a visiting professor at the University of Utah, and in 1997 he spent a semester in Colorado as a JILA Fellow. These led to renewed interest in weakly bound anions, and led to the fruitful collaboration with one of us (Mark Johnson) on negatively charged water clusters and anion−water clusters that continues in full force to today. Some say that Jordan’s contribution to this joint endeavor is the only thing that keeps the Johnson group’s quantum chemistry amateurs out of the basis set abyss! Like Jack, Mark and Ken have enjoyed many hiking and outdoors activities over the years from Telluride to Boulder to
©2010, University of Pittsburgh. Used with permission.
e dedicate this special issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry A to Professor Kenneth D. Jordan, on the occasion of his 66th birthday. Ken is a leader in the field of theoretical chemistry. His scientific contributions range from early quantum mechanical calculations to recent work on simulations and quantum-motivated molecular mechanics force fields. At this writing, he has mentored 60 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Many of these students and postdocs have gone on to influential positions in industry, government laboratories, and academia. Ken has led research efforts that produced an impressive body of work described in nearly 340 publications. Many of these are highly cited, paradigm setting contributions. Ken was born in 1948 in Norwood, Massachusetts. He did his undergraduate studies at Northeastern University and then joined the research group of Robert J. Silbey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a graduate student in 1970. His main research project at MIT involved unrestricted Hartree−Fock solutions of Pariser−Parr−Pople (PPP) model Hamiltonians for π-electron systems. He also worked on describing potential curves and electronic states of diatomic molecules, which triggered his interest in analytic continuation theory, an approach that he used later in extracting energies and lifetimes of temporary anions. Jack Simons was doing a postdoc with John Deutch and Irwin Oppenheim also at MIT in 1970. Ken’s work in fundamentals of electronic structure theory was an area that not many MIT graduate students or postdocs were studying, but it caught Jack’s interest, leading to many stimulating conversations. The two quickly became good friends. Soon after Jack left MIT to assume a faculty position at the University of Utah in 1971, he invited Ken to come and spend several months collaborating. Jack knew that Ken’s advisor (Silbey) was on sabbatical, so he expected that Ken would be
W
© 2014 American Chemical Society
Special Issue: Kenneth D. Jordan Festschrift Published: September 4, 2014 7167
dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp500588d | J. Phys. Chem. A 2014, 118, 7167−7168
The Journal of Physical Chemistry A
Special Issue Preface
Crete and back, and these conversations led to many new and productive research directions over the years. Feng Wang was Ken Jordan’s graduate student from 1998 to 2003. Under Ken’s guidance, Feng implemented the Drude model for calculating the binding affinity of an excess electron by polar molecules. Ken’s excellent mentoring and meticulous work ethic influenced Feng tremendously for his subsequent academic career. From 2003, the Drude model was further developed by Thomas Sommerfeld and other members of the Jordan group. After Feng became an independent scientist in 2005, Ken still provided mentorship and support. Feng frequently seeks help from Ken, benefitting from his tremendous experience both scholarly and personally. Feng also enjoyed the many hikes together and wants to thank Ken for inviting him over to family parties at Pittsburgh. In recent years, Ken ventured from electronic structure modeling of small clusters to molecular dynamics simulations of larger systems at finite temperature. This includes work on heat transport in gas hydrates and CO2 sequestration in clays. The relative success of the Drude model for electron binding energies also highlighted the need for underlying potentials between polar molecules, such as water. Ken has also vested significant effort in the development of quantum-motivated polarizable potentials. Ken’s tremendous talent allows him to make seminal contributions in many areas of research. Ken has also had a profound impact in the promotion of physical chemistry as well as the advancement of physical science at large. Among many other contributions, he served as an officer, including chair of the theoretical chemistry subdivision of the ACS for 6 years. He also served as the secretary and treasurer of the Physical Chemistry Division of the ACS from 2001 to 2006. Ken organized the American Conference on Theoretical Chemistry in 2002 and was cochair of the Molecular and Ionic Clusters conference in Japan in 2010. He was Chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh from 2002 to 2005, and has served as a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry since 2004. Ken helped establish the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Simulation and Modeling, of which he is presently a codirector. Ken also served as the president of the Telluride Science Research Center where he spearheaded much of its recent growth. Since 2013, he has been the chair-elect of the Division of Computational Physics of the American Physical Society. We feel honored to have helped organize this issue honoring Ken Jordan’s science. Joining with other contributors and colleagues, many of whom have collaborated with Ken over more than a decade, we wish Ken a happy 66th birthday. We look forward to many more years of fun and fruitful collaborations with him.
Mark Johnson Yale University
Jack Simons
University of Utah
Feng Wang
University of Arkansas
7168
dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp500588d | J. Phys. Chem. A 2014, 118, 7167−7168
