The Symposium ...

The Symposium will be held on May 8th, 2009 at Palmas del Mar, Humacao, Puerto Rico.

Featuring the following speakers

Angel E. García is a Professor of Physics; Senior Constellation Chaired Professor in Biocomputation and Bioinformatics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York . He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Biophysical Society, The Protein Society, the AAAS, and the American Chemical Society. He received the Edward Bouchard prize of the American Physical Society in 2006. Professor Garcia's research interests are theoretical and computational aspects of the structure, dynamics and stability of biological molecules. García is a member of the Penn-UPR PREM Advisory Committee.
Michael L. Klein is a Hepburn Professor of Physical Science and Director of the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter at University of Pennsylvania. Klein is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society (UK), and winner of the APS Rahman Prize (1999), CECAM Prize (2004) and ACS Peter Debye Award (2008). Throughout his career, he has made outstanding contributions to molecular simulation. He has a keen interest in science policy for cyberinfrastructure development. His current research involves applying principles from quantum mechanics and statistical thermodynamics to model molecular phenomena with computer simulations. Klein is the Co-PI of the Penn-UPR PREM.
Eugene Mele is a Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies quantum electronic phenomena in condensed matter and is particularly interested in so called “low dimensional” systems where the electron's motion is geometrically restricted by the effective dimensionality of the structure. His group is currently exploring electronic phenomena in molecular solids that are derived from fullerene molecules, nanotubes, and related carbon-derived structures.
Preston B. Moore is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Computer Science and Director of the WC3D2 "West Center for Computational Chemistry and Drug Design" at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. His current research focus is on the molecular dynamics simulation of lipid bilayers, membrane proteins such as ion channels and the spectroscopy of molecular liquids. Professor Moore's research also includes the development and application of new techniques. He is continuously developing and improving his group's state-of-the-art parallel molecular dynamics code. Moore is a member of the PENN-UPR PREM.
Andrew M. Rappe is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. He creates and uses new theoretical and computational approaches to study complex systems in materials science, condensed-matter physics, and physical chemistry. His research examines how the composition of oxide solid solutions leads to Angstrom-scale chemical structure, nanometer scale structural disorder, and long-range ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. These studies find real-world applications in catalysis, corrosion, SONAR, fuel cells and other important technologies. As a member of the Penn Energy Research Group he undertakes theoretical and computational design of new materials for solar light harvesting, solar production of chemical fuels, and fuel cell electrochemistry.
Jeffery G. Saven is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests involve theoretical chemistry, particularly as it applies to biopolymers, macromolecules, condensed phases, and disordered systems. Presently, the Saven group uses primarily theory and computation to study biomolecules, polymers, and condensed phase systems. Most of the research involves the application of statistical mechanics to liquids and macromolecules. A current thrust involves computational protein design and developing computational tools for understanding the properties of protein sequences consistent with a chosen three-dimensional structure.