Title:   Perturbation Theory for Electron Correlation in Molecules: Can it be Made Better and Faster?

Time:    2025-11-18 14:30

Lecturer:  Martin Head-Gordon

University of California, Berkeley

Venue:    Room 202, Lu-Jiaxi Building

Bio of the Lecturer：

Martin Head-Gordon completed B.Sc. (Hons) (1983) and M. Sc. (thesis) (1985) degrees at Monash University in Melbourne Australia, before coming to America to obtain his Ph. D. (1989) in theoretical chemistry at Carnegie-Mellon University, working with the late Sir John Pople on molecular orbital theory and algorithms. From 1989-1992 Head-Gordon was a postdoctoral fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories, working with John Tully. He explored gas-surface energy exchange, and developed new models for non-adiabatic energy flow. Since 1992 Head-Gordon has been on the faculty of the Chemistry Department at the University of California Berkeley, where he holds the Kenneth S. Pitzer Distinguished Professorship (since 2012). He also holds an additional appointment as a Senior Faculty Scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Head-Gordon’s research is primarily in molecular electronic structure theory. He is known for development of linear scaling quantum chemistry methods, for development of new density functionals, for advances in energy decomposition analysis, and for work on catalysis modeling. He is one of the driving forces behind the Q-Chem quantum chemistry program. Head-Gordon is a Fellow of the Royal Society (2019), a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2015), an American Chemical Society Fellow (2012), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011), and member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences (2006). He is an Associate Editor of Molecular Physics and is the President of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC). He has served as Program Chair and Chair of the ACS Division of Physical Chemistry (2009-2010).