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Adam Wasserman
Assistant Professor—Physical/Theoretical Chemistry
Email: awasser@purdue.edu
Phone: 765-494-2348
Office: WTHR 265B
For Professor Wasserman's individual Home Page click here.
Our main goal is to gain fundamental understanding regarding the role that electron-electron interactions play in chemistry, and to develop new theoretical tools that help guiding and interpreting experiments where electron correlations are essential. We work on extending the range of applicability of time-dependent density functional methods (TDDFT) to the calculation of energies and lifetimes of resonances, conductance through molecular wires, response of molecules to strong laser fields, and signatures of interaction-induced chaos.
We are also interested in the foundations of chemical reactivity theory (CRT) and understanding the way in which classic chemical concepts like electronegativity and hardness emerge from basic quantum mechanics. Within the framework of TDDFT, we are exploring possible time-dependent extensions of CRT in order to study electron excitation processes at the femtosecond time-scale.
Education
B.S., 1999, Universidad Nacional de Colombia; Ph.D., 2005, Rutgers University; Postdoctoral fellow, 2005-2008, Harvard University.Recognitions
- OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award from the American Chemical Society, 2013
- Sloan Research Fellowship, 2013
Selected Publications
- Tang, R. G.;Nafziger, J.;Wasserman, A., Fragment occupations in partition density functional theory . Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2012 , 14 , 7780-7786.
- Elliott P.;Cohen, M. H.;Wasserman, A.;Burke, K., Density Functional Partition Theory with Fractional Occupations . Journal of Chemical Theory and Computati 2009 , 5 , 827-833.
- Cohen M. H.;Wasserman, A.;Car, R.;Burke, K., Charge Transfer in Partition Theory . Journal of Physical Chemistry A 2009 , 113 , 2183-2192.
- Cohen, M.H.; Wasserman, A; Burke, K., Partition Theory: A very simple illustration. J. Phys. Chem. A 2007 , 111, 12447.


