Pulay Lecture Series Seminar on 'Local Electron Correlation' Today

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Hans-Joachim Werner

Professor Hans-Joachim Werner of the Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, will give a seminar titled "Local electron correlation: Accurate electronic structure methods for large molecules" from 3-4 p.m. today, Monday, April 3, in CHEM 144.

The seminar will also be available on Zoom for those who would like to attend remotely. The talk is free and open to the public.

Werner will give a review of the development of local electron correlation methods during the last 40 years, along with an introduction to orbital localization and local approximations. In the second part of the talk, Werner will describe modern pair natural orbital methods combined with explicit correlation treatments.

Werner received his diploma (M.S.) in theoretical chemistry from the University of Mainz, Germany, in 1975. He received his Ph.D. at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in 1977. He was a research assistant professor at the University of Frankfurt from 1977 until he received his Habilitation in 1982. He spent almost a year between 1983-84 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and then became a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. In 1985, he received the Heisenberg Fellowship and spent two years teaching and researching at the University of Frankfurt. He was appointed to full professor of theoretical chemistry at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, in 1987. He joined the University of Stuttgart in 1994 as professor and director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry.

Werner's main research interest is accurate electronic structure theory — in particular, highly accurate methods for large molecules, multi-reference wavefunctions for strongly correlated systems (reactive and excited systems and transition metal compounds) and non-covalent (van der Waals) interactions in large molecules. He is the principal author of the highly-acknowledged quantum chemistry program Molpro. He has about 300 publications and has a Hirsch index of 91.

Werner is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the Max Planck Research Award, the Jost Medal of the Göttingen Academy of Science and the Leibnitz Award of the German Research Foundation. He has held several high administrative positions: deanships at Bielefeld and Stuttgart, vice chancellor for research at Stuttgart, chair of the Commission on IT Infrastructure of the German Research Foundation, board member of the German Bunsen Society. Throughout his career, he has served on the editorial board of several journals in the fields of theoretical and computational chemistry.

This lecture series was made possible by the generosity of Jamie M. Coffin, who has had a distinguished career in the high-performance scientific computing and data management industry. He is currently CEO of Nature's Toolbox (NTx), a life sciences and bioinformatics company based in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Peter Pulay is the Roger B. Bost Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the U of A. His main contributions are methods and applications of electronic structure theory.