Two Chemistry Professors Honored
Professors Michael Klein and Michael Therien have been recognized for their achievements in chemistry.
Michael Klein, the Hepburn Professor of Physical Science, has received the 2004 Berni J. Alder CECAM Prize for exceptional contributions to the field of computational materials. Professor Klein’s work focuses on quantum and classical computer simulation of condensed matter and biophysical systems at the atomic level. He joined the chemistry department in 1987 after nearly 20 years as a research officer at the National Research Council of Canada. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Chemical Institute of Canada and received the American Physical Society’s Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics in 1999. He holds a B.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Bristol. The Alder Prize, awarded by the European Centre for Atomic and Molecular Computations, is the most prestigious European honor for computer simulation in statistical physics and physical chemistry. In awarding the prize, the organization said Professor Klein “belongs to the small group of brilliant scientists who transformed molecular dynamics from a tool in theoretical physics to the workhorse of what is now commonly referred to as ‘computational materials science.’ No single person has contributed on a broader front to the application of molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations to practical problems in many different areas of science.”
The American Chemical Society’s Philadelphia Section has selected Michael Therien to receive its 2004 award honoring a chemist who has increased public appreciation of the field through his or her research. Professor Therien, the Alan MacDiarmid Endowed Term Professor of Chemistry, has been a member of the chemistry department since 1990, and his research and teaching focus on inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry. Previous honors have included fellowships from the Dreyfus and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations and young investigator awards from the Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines, the National Science Foundation, E.I. duPont de Nemours, the Beckman Foundation, and the Searle Scholars Program. He holds a B.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. Before coming to Penn, he spent three years at the California Institute of Technology as a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow.