Gregory A. Voth

Born January 1, 1959 in Topeka, Kansas, USA

Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry and The James Franck Institute

Email:gavoth@uchicago.edu
WWW: external link

Address: Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, 5735 S. Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

American Chemical Society Division of Physical Chemistry Award in Theoretical Chemistry (2013); Elected Fellow of the Biophysical Society (2012); Charles A. McDowell Lecture, University of British Columbia (2012); LA-SiGMA Lecture, Louisiana State University (2012); Named Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professorship, University of Chicago (2011); Elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2009) (Inaugural Class); University of Utah Distinguished Scholarly and Creative Research Award (2008); Palke Lecturer, University of California, Santa Barbara (2008); Science2008 Keynote Speaker, University of Pittsburgh (2008); Elected Distinguished Professor, University of Utah (2005); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (2004-2005); Miller Visiting Professorship, University of California, Berkeley (2003); Reilly Lecturer, University of Notre Dame (1999); Frontiers of Chemistry Lecturer, Wayne State University (1999); Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999); Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (1998); IBM Faculty Research Award (1997-99, 2003-05); Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (1994-1999); Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow (1992-94); National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991-96); David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering (1990-95); Camille and Henry Dreyfus Distinguished New Faculty Award (1989)

Author of:

More than 400 scientific articles published in journals of chemistry, biophysics, chemical physics, molecular and structural biology, and materials science.

Important Contributions:

Developed a pioneering quantum methodology, Centroid Molecular Dynamics, based on the Feynman path "centroid" variables, for the computer simulation of general condensed phase quantum dynamical processes at finite temperature. This body of research includes several formal theoretical papers that provided a rigorous foundation for exact centroid dynamics, as well as various approximate schemes.
Developed a new effective quantum reactive dynamics methodology in the realm of liquids and protein dynamics, providing for the first time an explicit, deterministic molecular dynamics simulation approach for describing quantum reactions such as proton transport in numerous aqueous and biomolecular systems.
Through quantum path integral simulations, showed convincingly show that quantum nuclear effects are important for defining the behavior of liquid water and the surface of ice.
Developed a class of novel multiscale theoretical and computational methods, in which more efficient computational models can be systematically defined from more complex molecular calculations, e.g., from underlying ab initio molecular-scale forces. Since these new models are hundreds to thousands of times more efficient than full all-atom ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, they greatly expand the range of molecular simulation in both the length and time domains, while retaining the quantitative predictive power of the accurate quantum forces.