GRCOMET-09: Building a molecular picture of nature

Venue

The meeting will take place January 18–23, 2009 at the Four Points Sheraton Harbortown, Ventura. The hotel is nestled in the Ventura Harbor on 17 acres of prime coastal land along California's Gold Coast and in the heart of the Santa Barbara Wine Country. Less than an hour north of Los Angeles and less than 30 minutes south of Santa Barbara, the location offers with marvelous views, horse back riding, golfing, glider riding, hiking, boating and fishing. Driving directions.

Acknowledgments of financial support

As of today, the following organizations have committed to support GRCOMET-2009:

Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences

The Journal of Physical Chemistry

Molecular Physics/Taylor & Francis Group

Del Mar Photonics

Q-Chem

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP)

Berkeley Nucleonics

Altos Photonics

Continuum

The European Physical Journal

Coherent

Quantel

We are very grateful to their support, which will be primarily used to defray costs of participation for graduate students and postdocs. We are looking forward to hearing from other prospective donors who expressed interest to contribute to GRCOMET-09. How to donate.

Thank you for your interest in supporting the 2009 Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Energy Transfer!

If you are willing to contribute, please make your check payable to

Gordon Research Conferences – Molecular Energy Transfer

and mail directly to

Gordon Research Conferences,
512 Liberty Lane,
West Kingston, RI 02892, USA

In order to give us the most flexibility in organizing this conference, it would be very helpful if you could indicate in a cover letter that the contribution is for “Chair's discretionary use”.

GRC is a registered 501(C) (3) non-profit organization and charges no overhead or indirect costs for administering the funds, therefore all of the contributions will go directly to support this conference.

Meeting program

Sun, Jan 18 (Evening). Molecular energy transfer: New horizons.

Chair: Carl Lineberger (University of Colorado, Boulder)

Albert Stolow (Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences, NRC, Canada)
Kopin Liu (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)

Mon, Jan 19 (Morning). Imaging and unimolecular reactions.

Chair: Scott Reid (Marquette Unviversity)

Robert Continetti (University of Califonia, San Diego)
Arthur Suits (Wayne State University)
Andrei Sanov (University of Arizona)

Mon, Jan 19 (Afternoon). Photodissociation.

Chair: Marsha Lester (University of Pennsylvania)

Reinhard Schinke (Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation, Germany)
Hanna Reisler (University of Southern California)

Tue, Jan 20 (Morning). Clusters and the condensed phase.

Chair: Mark Johnson (Yale University)

David Sherrill (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Steve Bradforth (University of Southern California)
Millard Alexander (University of Maryland, College Park)

Tue, Jan 20 (Afternoon). Spectroscopy and molecular energy transfer.

Chair: David Perry (University of Akron)

Bob Field (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Kevin Lehmann (University of Virginia)

Wed, Jan 21 (Morning). MET in coupled electron–nuclear dynamics.

Chair: Anne McCoy (Ohio State University)

Joel Bowman (Emory University)
David Yarkony (Johns Hopkins University)
Wei Kong (Oregon State University)

Wed, Jan 21 (Afternoon). MET in radical reactions.

Chair: Mitchio Okumura (California Institute of Technology)

Pierro Casavecchia (Università di Perugia, Italy)
David Nesbitt (University of Colorado, Boulder)

Thu, Jan 22 (Morning). MET in condensed phase, interfaces, and materials.

Chair: Alec Wodtke (University of California, Santa Barbara)

George Schatz (Northwestern University)
Arthur Utz (Tufts University)
George Flynn (Columbia University, New York)

Thu, Jan 22 (Afternoon). Spin, quantum mechanics, and the Universe.

Chair: Ara Apkarian (University of California, Irvine)

Curt Wittig (University of Southern California)

Curt Wittig has agreed to deliver an after dinner lecture entitled “A few comments about spin.”

Building a molecular picture of nature

NO molecules in cold liquid helium environment Understanding the flow of energy within and between molecules is essential to the development of a fundamental understanding of the nature of all chemical processes. Furthermore, the deepest understanding can be achieved when phenomena are dealt with at the molecular level, connecting quantum-state, time-resolved and other modern methods of experimentation to ab initio theoretical study. The Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Energy Transfer will bring scientists together concerned with a wide variety of interests spanning chemistry, physics and biology, yet unified by the idea that developing a molecular picture of chemical dynamics is a central goal of their endeavors. An important aspect of this field is the fact that nearly every forefront topic of inquiry is well represented by experimental and theoretical advances. Topics of interest to this community are remarkably diverse, as the emphasis on deriving fundamental understanding often leads to insights in real world phenomena or even development of novel technologies.

The meeting will be preceded by a Graduate Research Seminar that will focus on the work of graduate students and postdocs. Full program of the graduate research seminar (PDF) is available for printing.

Graduate Research Seminar

GRS Chairs:

Anton Zadorozhnyy (University of Southern California)
Sarandis Marinakis (Heriot-Watt University)

GRS Mentors:

Alexander V. Benderskii (Wayne State University)
Dan Neumark (UC Berkeley)

The Gordon–Kenan Graduate Research Seminar (GRS) on Molecular Energy Transfer will bring together students and postdoctoral researchers who study energy transfer phenomena on atomic and molecular level. The meeting is scheduled to take place January 17–18, 2009, at the Four Points Sheraton/Holiday Inn Express hotel, Ventura, California, USA, immediately preceding the Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Energy Transfer. This two-day format is designed specifically to establish connections among the young conferees and promote their full participation in the main part of the Gordon Conference.

The GRS offers an exciting opportunity for young investigators in this field to get to know each other and interact on their own level in an informal atmosphere. Graduate students and postdocs will be able to share the practical experiences behind their achievements, as well as discuss the frontiers of their science. Attendees will also benefit from mentoring by established scientists, who will lead discussions and provide valuable comments.

GRS–MET history.

Participation

The meeting will feature two sessions on the following topics as well as the poster session on Saturday night:

Saturday Evening Session: Molecular Energy Transfer in Photodissociation, Inelastic and Reactive Scattering.
Chair: Daniel Neumark.
Sunday Morning Session: Molecular Energy Transfer in Clusters, Interfaces, Materials and Biochemistry.
Chair: Alex Benderskii.

The organizing committee is currently working on securing funds to offset the cost of participation in the GRS and GRC for graduate students and postdocs.

To apply, follow instructions on the official GRS website.

Brief history of the meeting and links to the previous events.

To participate in GRCOMET-09, follow instructions on the official GRC website.

In keeping with the tradition of this meeting, which alternates between the MET Gordon Conference in the US and the COMET meeting in Europe, we are organizing sessions to cover all areas of molecular energy transfer. These include:

Chemical reactivity and reaction dynamics.
Ionized and electronically excited species.
Clusters, interfaces and condensed phase.
Photochemistry, spectroscopy, and imaging.
Non-adiabatic, spin-forbidden, and vibronic ET.

Information will be updated on this site as it becomes available. Any questions about the meeting, please contact one of the co-chairs:

H. Floyd Davis
Professor of Chemistry
Cornell University

Anna I. Krylov
Professor of Chemistry
University of Southern California