Division of Physical Chemistry

Spring 2003 Newsletter

• Officers
• Remarks from Chair
• Election Information and Ballot
• Notes from the Secretary
• Biophysical Subdivision
• Poster Session Awards
• Request for Symposia Topics and Speakers
• Recent Symposia Topics
• Technical Program - 225th National Meeting - New Orleans, LA
• Call for Papers - 226th National Meeting - New York City, NY
• Restrictions for Speakers for PHYS Symposia
• Submission of Abstracts
• General Information for Contributed Papers
• Future ACS Meetings
• Announcements
• Membership Information

Remarks from the Division Chair for the New Orleans ACS National Meeting Spring 03

The ACS Spring National meeting is upon us again, and Jim Skinner has done a superb job as Physical Chemistry Division program chair in putting together a diverse and exciting program. In New Orleans, Jim has organized eight oral symposia including two on electronic structure: "Iterative methods in quantum mechanics and applications to chemical problems" , and "New electronic structure methods: from molecules to materials"; three in areas of biophysical chemistry: "Physical chemistry of biomolecular motors", "Sequence-dependent curvature and deformation in nucleic acids and protein-nucleic acid complexes", and "Structure-function correlation for biological ion channels". In addition, symposia have been organized on "Spectroscopy and dynamics in liquids", "VUV probes of dynamics and spectroscopy", and "Synthesis, spectroscopy, characterization, and applications of nanoparticles". In addition, the traditional Physical Chemistry Poster session will be held on Wednesday evening. We will be continuing the tradition we began at the last meeting of awarding cash prizes (on-the-spot checks) to the best student presented posters. Please plan to attend the poster session and congratulate the winners.

The spring meeting is also when we honor our colleagues who have won National ACS Awards. The Physical Chemistry Award symposium will be held Tuesday afternoon. Receiving awards this year are: H.F. Schaefer, III (ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry, sponsored by IBM Corporation), W. H. Miller (Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry, sponsored by E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company), M. E. Jacox (E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy), R. L. Christensen (Research at an Undergraduate Institution sponsored by Research Corporation), and L. Blum (Joel Henry Hildebrand Award in the Theoretical and Experimental Chemistry of Liquids, sponsored by ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co., and Exxon Mobil Chemical Co.).

I would like to invite all Physical Chemistry Division members to become active in the Division. We are always looking for Division Members who would like to represent the Division as officers or executive committee members. If you are interested in participating in this manner, please let any of the Division officers know. Each year at or just prior to the fall meeting the Division Chair appoints a three-person nominating committee to nominate candidates for all the open officer and executive committee positions, and elections are held coincident with the spring meeting. In an organization such as the ACS where the bulk of the work is carried out by volunteers such as the division officers, councilors, and executive committee members, it is important to have diverse and active participation by the division members.

Jim is already well along with the planning for the Fall, 2003, meeting which will be held in New York City next September. I would encourage all of you to provide your suggestions for symposia you would like to see the physical chemistry division organize (or which you would like to organize under the auspices of the division) to David Nesbitt, who is the Program Chair for the 2004 National Meetings. You can also provide suggestions to any of the physical chemistry division executive committee members.

Lastly, I would like to thank the immediate past officers and staff of the Physical Chemistry division for their dedication and hard work. The past Chair, Richard Stratt, has made my job as program chair and now Chair a lot easier with his advice and instruction on how to accomplish things within the ACS. Our secretary/treasurer, Ken Jordan. has worked tirelessly for the Division. His efforts to see that the money flows appropriately and effectively have made the activities at the national meetings work smoothly. Elaine Springel has been our Division administrative assistant for almost a year now. She stepped into this position as we prepared for the Spring, 2002, National Meeting in Orlando and has provided invaluable assistance ever since.

Election Information and Ballot

The Bylaws of the Division of Physical Chemistry, approved in 1997, call for the Division Chair to appoint a three-person, Nominating Committee before the spring meeting. A complete slate of candidates prepared by this committee will consist of one candidate for Vice-Chair-Elect, one candidate for each vacancy on the Executive Committee, and one candidate for each vacancy that may have developed in the ranks of the division Councilors, Alternate Councilors, and Secretary/Treasurer position. The Vice-Chair-Elect automatically becomes the Vice-Chair, Chair-Elect, Chair, and Immediate past-Chair in each succeeding year. Thus, this person makes a commitment to serve five years on the Executive Committee. In the year this person serves as Chair-Elect, the duties of Program Chair are also his or hers. The term of office for other Executive Committee members, Councilors, and Alternate Councilors is three years. The Secretary/Treasurer serves five years.

The Secretary/Treasurer is required to announce the slate of candidates in the fall newsletter (which is part of the abstract separates for the fall meeting).

To increase the input of the members in this nominating process and to broaden the pool of candidates, the Executive Committee seeks input directly from members for use by the Nominating Committee. Any member may suggest nominees to any of the officers of the PHYS division in writing. The nominee must agree to serve.

Additional nominations can come from the membership in the following fashion: A petition candidate must be supported by the signatures of not fewer than 4% of the members of the PHYS division in good standing (presently approximately 4,000).   No signature shall be valid if it appears on more than one nominating petition for the same vacancy during the same calendar year.

A letter shall be submitted from each petition nominee stating willingness to be a candidate for election and to serve the Division for a full term if elected. No nominee may be a candidate for more than one vacancy. If nominated for more than one vacancy, the nominee must choose which nomination to accept.

Four weeks from the date of the mailing of the fall newsletter shall be allowed for additional nominations to be received by the Secretary/Treasurer. All valid nominations received within that period shall be accepted and no others.

If no valid nominations are forthcoming from the membership, the nominees submitted by the Nominating Committee for Vice-Chair-Elect, Secretary/Treasurer, and membership on the Executive Committee are declared elected.

Regardless of whether petition nominees are validated or not, the Bylaws require the Secretary/Treasurer to mail to every PHYS division member a ballot that bears at a minimum the names of biographical sketches of the single candidates for each Councilor and Alternate Councilor vacancy submitted by the Nominating Committee.

New Officers for the PHYS division follow. The first seven physical chemistry officers assumed their respective offices at the close of the national meeting in Chicago. The Councilors and vice-councilors begin their terms of service on January 1, 2002.
 

John C. Hemminger, Chair James L. Skinner, Chair-Elect David Nesbitt, Vice-Chair  Barbara Garrison, Vice-Chair Elect Stephen Bradforth, Executive Committee John Hellgeth, Executive Committee Jeanne Robinson, Executive Committee John Adams, Councilor Marsha I. Lester, Alternate Councilor Gil Nathanson, Alternate Councilor

1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 3 years 3 years 3 years 3 years 3 years 3 years

The Physical Chemistry Division thanks outgoing officers Richard M. Stratt (Chair), John C. Hemminger (Chair-Elect), James Skinner (Vice-Chair), David Nesbitt (Vice-Chair-Elect), Steven Buntin (Executive Committee), Barbara Garrison (Executive Committee), Alexander Harrison (Executive Committee), Edward M. Eyring (Councilor), Paul Houston (Alternate Councilor), and Gregory Voth (Alternate Councilor) for their service to the Division.

Notes from the Secretary/Treasurer

This newsletter contains information about the ACS national meetings and any other items of interest to significant numbers of PHYS division members. All members of the PHYS Division are welcome to submit items to the Secretary for inclusion in this newsletter. The deadlines are generally around December 1 and May 1 for the newsletters appearing before the Spring and Fall ACS meetings, respectively. Submissions may be made via mail, FAX, or e-mail.

The current ACS Bylaws & Regulations may be viewed at:

http://chemistry.org/portal/Chemistry?PID=acsdisplay.html&DOC=bulletin5/index.html.

A copy of the bylaws and regulations is also included on the Division's web page.

Biophysical Subdivision

Subdivision membership is free to dues-paying members or affiliates of the Division of Physical Chemistry. To join the Biophysical Subdivision, notify the Chair, Peter G. Wolynes, at the address in the table of officers. Indicate that you wish to join and mention that you belong to the PHYS Division. If you do not belong to the Division, you may join both the Division and the Biophysical Subdivision by completing the application form at the end of this newsletter.

Student Poster Awards

At the Fall 2002 National ACS meeting in Boston the Physical Chemistry Division initiated graduate student poster awards. Five awardees were chosen and received cash awards of $300 each. The recipients were:

• Matthew K. BrennamanEvidence for the Existence of a Two State Equilibrium in the Photoexcited State of [Ru(BPY)₂DPPZ]²⁺, University of North Carolina.
• Ilya Chorny, Photodissociation of OClO in the Bulk and at the Surface of Liquids, University of California, Santa Cruz.
• Christine M. MicheelNovel Characterization Techniques for Recent Nanocrystal Molecules, University of California, Berkeley.
• Lula Rosso, Calculating Free Energy Profiles using Adiabatic Molecular Dynamics, New York University.
• Kevin S. Schneider, The Effect of Surface Reconstruction on Molecular Chemisorption: A Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Study of H₈Si₈O₁₂ on Au(111), University of Michigan.

Request for Symposia Topics and Speakers

Spring Meeting
Technical Program
March 23-27, 2003 - New Orleans, LA

• Iterative Methods in Quantum Mechanics & Applications to Chemical Problems, Hua Guo (University of New Mexico) and Stephen Gray (Argonne National Laboratory)
• New Electronic Structure Methods: From Molecules to Materials , Emily Carter (University of California, Las Angeles) and Martin Head-Gordon (University of California, Berkeley)
• Physical Chemistry of Biomolecular Motors , Qiang Cui (University of Wisconsin) and Carlos Bustamante (University of California, Berkeley)
• Sequence-Dependent Curvature & Deformation in Nucleic Acids & Protein-Nucleic Acid Complexes , Nancy Stellwagen (University of Iowa) and Udayan Mohanty (Boston College)
• Spectroscopy & Dynamics in Liquids, Branka Ladanyi (Colorado State University) and March Maroncelli (Pennsylvania State University)
• Structure-Function Correlation for Biological Ion Channels , Bob Eisenberg (Rush Medical Center) and Arieh Warshel (University of Southern California)
• Synthesis, Spectroscopy, Characterization, & Applications of Nanoparticles, Naomi Halas (Rice University) and Steven Buratto (University of California, Santa Barbara)
• VUV Probes of Dynamics & Spectroscopy , Arthur Suits (State University of New York, Stony Brook) and Cheuk Ng (University of California, Davis)

Fall Meeting
Call for Papers
September 7-11, 2003 - New York City, NY

Online abstract submission for this meeting begins approximately mid-February. Please see http://www.acs.org/meetings/abstract/abinfo.html for abstract submission access and guidelines. Only electronic abstracts via the ACS online submittal system, OASys, will be accepted, except by special arrangement with the ACS symposium organizers before approximately the end of February. You can check the Division's website for specific deadlines. The web page is http://hackberry.chem.trinity.edu/PHYS.

Submit your abstract online at the ACS website: http://www.acs.org/meetings/abstract/abinfo.html. Please see the following for more information regarding submission. As is now customary, Program Chair Skinner has arranged for the presentation of contributed talks in each of the topical symposia. The contributed talks will be selected by the individual symposium organizers from among abstracts that explicitly request consideration for oral presentation. The criterion for selection will be close connection with the topics addressed in the symposia. Abstracts not selected for oral presentation will be assigned to the poster session(s), unless the authors request otherwise. Since the organizers will not be able to accommodate all requests, the poster sessions will be specifically organized to group posters by symposium topic. While the symposia do cover a wide range of topics, they cannot cover the full depth and breadth of physical chemistry. The Division, therefore, also welcomes general contributions to the poster sessions, which will be grouped by subject area.

Restrictions on Speakers for PHYS Symposia

Submission of Abstracts

Request for Contributed Oral Presentations : Authors who submit a contributed paper to the program and wish their abstract to be considered for possible oral presentation in a topical symposium must indicate such preference. The abstract should be submitted to the symposium in which oral presentation is desired and is due one week prior to the deadline.

General Information for Contributed Papers

Information and Rules Applying to All Contributed Poster Papers

1. No paper will be accepted unless an author expects to be present.
2. ACS Bylaws 3(a) require that "papers by American Chemists or chemical engineers not members of the Society shall not appear on the program unless they be joint with one or more Society members."
3. Prospective poster presenters who also submit papers to other Divisions should inform the Chairman-Elects as to the Division, titles of papers and co-authors by the deadline date.
4. Each poster paper will have a poster board measuring 4"x8".
5. All illustrations, charts, and textual material to be posted must be prepared in advance since materials for these purposes will not be available at the meeting.
6. Posters should be mounted prior to the opening of the session and left in place until the close. Authors are encouraged to be present the entire session.
7. There must be a heading (with letter at least 1" height) giving the title of the papers, the author(s), their affiliation(s), and the number assigned to it in the program.
8. Illustrative material will be read by attendees from a distance of 3' or more, so lettering on illustrations should be at least 3/8" high.
9. There should be a logical sequence (introduction, development and conclusion) to the display and each sheet should be numbered.
10. Mounting the sheets on colored construction paper and using other techniques for improving graphic impact will enhance the presentation's effectiveness. Ease of reading is far more important than artistic flair. Certain color combinations, for instance, may look beautiful but may be almost impossible to read, especially in the absence of optimum lighting.
11. Do NOT mount illustrations on heavy stock, which is difficult to mount on the poster boards.
12. Each author is responsible for mounting his or her material at least 1/2 hour prior to the opening of the assigned poster session and removing it within 1/2 hour after the close of the session. ACS cannot assume any responsibility for materials beyond those time limits.
13. Do provide sign-up sheets to record names and addresses of attendees who wish more information.
14. Do bring duplicates of data and conclusions. Duplicating facilities are unavailable through ACS.
15. ACS provides a modest supply of pushpins, masking tape, and felt-tipped pens, but it is wise to bring your own. Upon advance request, ACS will arrange for blackboards to be available in the room.
16. Admission to poster sessions will be by ACS meeting badge only.
17. A poster paper submitted to the Program Chair (before the deadline) for presentation at a national meeting should be considered accepted unless the author is specifically notified to the contrary by the Division of Physical Chemistry Program Chair.

Future National ACS Meetings

Announcements

ACS Prospectives Conferences:

Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, MA
November 10-13, 2002

Process Chemistry in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Chairs: Kumar Gadamasetti, X-Mine, Inc., Mike Martinelli, Eli Lilly

Condado Plaza Hotel, San Juan, Puerto Rico
February 2-5, 2003

Catalysis in Modern Organic Synthesis
Chairs: Stephen Buchwald, MIT, Gregory Fu, MIT, Eric Jacobsen, Harvard University

Cambridge Marriott, Cambridge, MA March 2-5, 2003

For more information, please contact John Katz, ACS Prospectives, (800) 227-0558

2003 Midwest Theoretical Chemistry Conference, June 12-14, 2003

American Chemical Society 
Division of Physical Chemistry 
Subdivision of Theoretical Chemistry 
Subdivision of Biophysical Chemistry

1. Members receive, in advance, abstracts of the papers to be delivered in the Division of Physical Chemistry programs at national meetings of the ACS
2. Members receive a newsletter with the abstracts of the National meetings listing future symposia and divisional meetings and giving the deadlines for submission of papers to be presented at these meetings. The newsletter is included with the abstracts of papers for convenience.
3. Members receive discounts on the purchase price of the complete bound books of meeting abstracts. Discounts for other books and journals are also available, and new arrangements are negotiated from time to time.
4. The Division of Physical Chemistry is an affiliate of the American Institute of Physics, and members of the Division are eligible for a discount on various AIP publications including The Journal of Chemical Physics.
5. The Division holds mixers at each national meeting of the ACS at which a division program is presented. These events are held in conjunction with a poster session and provide an excellent opportunity to meet other physical chemists.
6. Members may vote and hold office in the Division and participate in its activities. Division Affiliates may not vote and may not hold office. Members and Affiliates are invited to suggest symposium topics, speakers, and organizers.
7. The Division maintains a close relationship with the Journal of Physical Chemistry. Through the Division programs and through cooperation with the Journal of Physical Chemistry, we seek to call attention to the vigorous and dynamic character of physical chemistry in this country and to stimulate intellectual cross-fertilization between the different fields of research in physical chemistry.
8. The Division mounts important award symposia. The Debye, Hildebrand, and Theoretical Chemistry awards are given each year, the Langmuir Award every other year by the ACS. In addition, the Pure Chemistry and Nobel Laureate Signature awards are frequent features in Division symposia.
9. In 1978, the Division established the Subdivision of Theoretical Chemistry. There is no additional fee for membership in the Subdivision. The subdivision provides special services and participates fully in developing symposium topics at the national meetings, specifically for the theoretically inclined.
10. In 1978, the Division established the Subdivision of Biophysical Chemistry. There is no additional fee for membership in the Subdivision. The subdivision provides special services and participates fully in developing symposium topics at the national meetings, specifically for the biophysically inclined.