Henry F. Schaefer, III

Life and work

Schaefer studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor 's degree in chemical physics in 1966 and in 1969 received his doctorate at Stanford University. After that, he was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1969 to 1987 and from 1987 professor at the University of Georgia, where he is director of the Center for Computational Chemistry and Graham Perdue Professor at Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

1979/80 he was the founding director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, where he was Wilfred T. Doherty Professor. He was a visiting professor at the University of Paris, at the ETH Zurich and the Australian National University.

Schaefer is concerned with theoretical and computer-based quantum chemistry ( ab initio calculations ). He is involved in more than 1,300 publications (2012 ). Some of his publications led to the review of long-standing models, so his prediction of the structure of methylene solely from theoretical quantum mechanical calculations, 1970 ( and the model of Gerhard Herzberg contradictory ), which gave a boost to the reputation of ab initio calculations.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and he was long chairman of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists ( WATOC ).

Schaefer published on religion and science, and holds lectures about it. He expressed sympathy for intelligent design.

Honors

Writings

• Quantum Chemistry: The Development of Ab Initio Methods in Molecular Electronic Structure Theory. Dover Pub. , 2004