David Chandler The Bruce Mahan Professor of Chemistry 208 Gilman Hall  Department of Chemistry  University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1460  (510) 643-6821  chandler@cchem.berkeley.edu

Research:

My principal research has been devoted to understanding liquids. Early in my career, I worked with Hans Andersen and John Weeks in developing a quantitative description of liquid structure and thermodynamics in terms of molecular packing. This work is known as the WCA theory. To extend this theory to complex fluids, I developed the reference interaction site model (RISM). It describes packing of irregular shaped molecules in the liquid state. Its use in describing polymeric liquids, pioneered by my student Kenneth Schweizer, is currently the most important application of this model.

With my student Lawrence Pratt, I developed the molecular theory of hydrophobicity. The Pratt-Chandler theory describes in analytical terms the free energy to reorganize water structure in the vicinity of hydrophobic groups. For small hydrophobic groups in water, the most favorable structural rearrangement places water between a pair of hydrophobic particles--a solvent separated hydrophobic bond. During the last decade, I have returned to this problem, but with emphasis on extended hydrophobic surfaces. Such surfaces can induce phase transitions and powerful inter-surface interactions over mesoscopic length scales. The onset of this behavior is in the nanometer regime, relevant to structural biology.

I have also developed the statistical mechanical techniques for analyzing chemical equilibrium and chemical dynamics in liquids. My students and I have used these techniques to understand the behavior of electrons in liquids, and we have also has carried these methods into the biophysical realm where we have studied electron transfer in proteins. During the late 1990s, Christoph Dellago, Peter Bolhuis, Phillip Geissler and I have developed a technique of transition path sampling, permitting the computational study of rare but important events without preconceived knowledge of transition states. We have used the technique to discover the kinetic pathways in a number of complex systems. Processes investigated included weak acid dissociation in water and in clusters and the folding of solvated polymers. Topics of study in my current research group are self assembly, glasses, aging and dynamics of systems far from equilibrium.

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Recent Lecture Titles by David Chandler:

Biography (Click here for a brief narrative.) (Click here to download autobiography published in the David Chandler Festschrift.)

Education and Professional Positions Include:
S.B., MIT (1966); Ph.D., Harvard (1969); Assist. Professor to Professor, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana (1970-1983); Visiting Professor, Columbia University (1977-1978); Professor, University of Pennsylvania (1983-1985); Professor, University of California, Berkeley (1986-); Directeur de Recherche, Laboratoire de Physique, Ecole Normale Superieure, Lyon (1992); Hinshelwood Lecturer, University of Oxford (1993); Faculty Chemist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1996-); Visiting Fellow of Merton College, Oxford (2001); Schlumberger Visiting Professor, University of Oxford (2003 and 2004); Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, Executive Committee (2002-2008) and Executive Director (2006-2008); Overseas Visiting Scholar, St. John's College, University of Cambridge (2008).

Honors Include:
Sloan Fellow(1972-1974); Elected Fellow, American Association for Advancement of Science (1980); Guggenheim Fellow (1981-1982); Elected Fellow, American Physical Society (1982); Bourke Medal and Lecturer, Royal Society of Chemistry(1985); Hildebrand Award for Research on Liquids, American Chemical Society (1989); Flygare Memorial Lecturer, University of Illinois (1989); Miller Research Professor (1991 and 1999-2000); Christianson Fellow of St. Catherine's College, University of Oxford (1993); Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences (1995); Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1995); Theoretical Chemistry Award, American Chemical Society (1996); Journal of Physical Chemistry Centennial Lecturer (1996); Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry, University of Wisconsin (1998); Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award (1999); Mulliken Award, University of Chicago (2000); Lennard-Jones Lecturer, Royal Society of Chemistry (2001); Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics, American Physical Society (2005); G. B. Kistiakowsky Lecturer, Harvard University (2006).

Publications: