Special Issue Preface pubs.acs.org/JPCB
Tribute to Branka M. Ladanyi have to explain to meone more timethat molecules have their own idiosyncrasies in the liquid state, and that molecular liquids have a lot more to them than one would ever suspect from the toy atomic liquid models I had been spending my own time with. It was an education every time I received a new email. Of course, Branka has made a career of explaining the behavior of molecular liquids to the world, so I should not have been surprised. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to help recognize her wide ranging accomplishments in this special issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry B. Richard M. Stratt
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ranka joined the faculty at Colorado State University in 1979. Since then, she has made groundbreaking contributions to the theory and modeling of the dynamics and structure of liquids, supercritical fluids, and molecular clusters. Her work has contributed profoundly to our understanding of the properties of molecular fluids, an area critically important to many fields of chemistry. She has blended theoretical and computational statistical mechanics in studies of the structure and dynamics of bulk fluids, molecular clusters, microemulsions, and liquid interfaces to explore phenomena such as vibrational relaxation, light scattering, nonlinear optical response, and dielectric relaxation. The unifying theme in this research is the desire to unravel the complex dynamics in these systems and phenomena at a microscopic levela goal that has challenged scientists for generations and one critical for the comprehension of real chemical processes. Branka has achieved remarkable success in achieving this goal in a diverse range of contexts. Branka is probably best known for her contributions to our understanding of depolarized light scattering and dielectric relaxation/solvation dynamics. More than any other single person, Branka’s studies have shaped our understanding of what can be learned about molecular motion in the liquid state from conventional frequency-domain experiments and their newer time-domain analogues. Many scientists using theoretical and computational models work on problems for which there is no comparison to experiment, but not Branka. Throughout her career, Branka has always focused on the challenge of developing models directly applicable to experiment, thereby providing both insight into the chemical processes measured in experiment and true tests for the models she has developed. Her studies of optical spectroscopies as well as light and neutron scattering have explained many of the uncertainties surrounding these experimental techniques, elegantly demonstrating that signals previously thought to arise from individual molecular motions are in fact dominated by collective motion. Her models have pushed many researchers, both experimental and theoretical, to investigate more complex systems, especially self-assembled and biological systems. In studies using neutron scattering, she lent her expertise to challenge the standard models used for inter-
Photograph taken by Marshall Fixman
I wish I could say that I remember the first time I met Branka Ladanyi. It was in 1981, soon after she had arrived at Colorado State. I wanted to have something interesting to do for the summer following my sophomore year in college, so I looked to see if there were any research jobs at CSU, which was in my home town of Fort Collins. I know I was thrilled to be accepted into an NSF URP (undergraduate research participation - the predecessor to the REU) program. I spent the summer working with Branka, learning about Raman scattering and trying to write some Monte Carlo code to model liquids. She was unfazed by my lack of experience and spent significant time helping me to learn. My summer flew by, and I felt that I had not made a lot of progress. Branka must have thought otherwise because she included me as a co-author on a paper she later published. Working with Branka first gave me direction and confidence as a researcher. She started me on a path to my academic career; more than a decade later, I joined Colorado State University with Branka as my colleague. I feel deep gratitude for the scientific and professional guidance she gave to me. What a pleasure it is to honor her with this special issue. Nancy E. Levinger
I have been an admirer of Branka’s work since I first encountered it as a postdoc. I’ve greatly benefited from our many conversations at meetings, and thoroughly enjoyed the hikes we have taken together in New England and Colorado. Although Branka and I have collaborated on only one paper to date, I count it as one of my very best contributions to the field of solvation dynamics. It is therefore a pleasure to be able to take part in this celebration of her accomplishments. Mark Maroncelli
Molecules are different. If there is one lesson that I have learned from Branka over the course of the collaborations that I have been lucky enough to be a part of, it is that one. Every time we started anew, it seemed as if Branka would © 2015 American Chemical Society
Special Issue: Branka M. Ladanyi Festschrift Published: July 23, 2015 8811
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b04727 J. Phys. Chem. B 2015, 119, 8811−8812
Special Issue Preface
The Journal of Physical Chemistry B
One thing is certain: working with Branka has had a strong positive impact on the research and careers of all three of the Guest Editors and far more people beyond. We strive to meet the high bar of accomplishment set by our collaborator, colleague, research mentor, and friend, Branka Ladanyi.
pretation. These studies unequivocally demonstrated the inadequacy of a standard simplification and encouraged development of new, more sophisticated models. Her collaborations with Richard Stratt on solvation dynamics and vibrational energy relaxation took what, in some ways, was an opposite tack. As always, her work emphasized the fundamentally molecular character of these most basic of liquid-state chemical processes. Here, however, the challenge was to see the universal and simplifying features and, in particular, to show how “collective” motion did not have to mean “uninterpretable” motion. In a series of papers, she helped demonstrate just how much of polar solvation is caused by certain kinds of motions in the first solvation shell, how incredibly similar nonpolar solvation is to vibrational energy relaxation, and how Coulombic forces could be so important in setting the stage for vibrational relaxation yet so unimportant in causing the relaxation itself. And, in each case, the results spoke directly to how we needed to rethink our ideas about a growing body of experimental findings on ultrafast spectra. As occurred often in her career, Branka’s curiosity about experimental results prompted her to shift focus from simple liquids to studies of liquids in confinement. This journey started as a collaboration with Nancy Levinger exploring reverse micelles and led her on the path to develop models for complex systems including liquids in solid pores. A few models existed in the literature when Branka took on the reverse micelles challenge, although none were current. Together with her postdoctoral associate, Dr. James Faeder, she developed a relatively simple model to describe water confined inside a reverse micelle, and with this model, she spurred many other research groups to develop new models for confinement. These results are of incredible value to the biophysics, biochemistry, and biology communities, as they seek to understand how water confined in subcellular organelles, such as the cell nucleus, impacts key metabolic steps, such as nucleic acid transcription. Indeed, her first paper with Faeder continues to garner citations even as Branka and others have developed much more sophisticated models for these systems. Branka has also been a leader in the scientific community. She served on executive committees both for the American Physical Society Division of Chemical Physics and for the American Chemical Society Division of Physical Chemistry. In addition to presenting her work broadly around the world, she also organized several national and international meetings, workshops and symposia, and reviewed programs both in the US and abroad. In 1997, she was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and in 2004 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1994, Branka was named one of the first two Associate Editors of the Journal of Chemical Physics and eventually interim Editor-in-Chief of the journal. She was the first woman to hold such a position at this prominent scientific journal. In some ways, more important than her direct service as an Editor is her serving as a role model for other women scientists, who now regularly serve as Editors in major research journals. Throughout her career, Branka mentored a significant number of students and postdoctoral associates. Her research group was never large, making it even more impressive to consider how she has impacted a broad range of areas with relatively little help. Perhaps the key is her gentle, thoughtful, effective teaching and mentoring, which has made it possible for her students and postdocs to rise to her level.
Nancy E. Levinger Colorado State University
Mark Maroncelli Penn State University
Richard M. Stratt Brown University
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b04727 J. Phys. Chem. B 2015, 119, 8811−8812
