Alumna becomes director of NSF Chemistry Division

Alumna Angela K. Wilson will become the new director of the National Science Foundation’s Chemistry Division in March 2016. She earned her doctorate in chemical physics from the University of Minnesota in 1995, under the tutelage of the late Professor Jan Almlöf. A computational chemist, Wilson is currently a Regents Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling at the University of North Texas.

Wilson’s honors include the Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal of the American Chemical Society, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Distinguished Woman in Chemistry, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Quantum Systems in Chemistry and Physics Promising Scientist Award of Centre de Mécanique Ondulatoire Appliquée, and Wiley International Journal of Quantum Chemistry Young Investigator Award. She is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a National Associate of the U.S. National Academies.

She has served on the editorial boards or editorial advisory boards of Scientific Reports, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, and Journal of Physical Chemistry. She served on the editorial board of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry before she became editor in 2014.

Her research interests include the development and understanding of ab initio and density functional theory methods and basis sets, prediction of thermochemical and spectroscopic properties from main group to heavy element species, catalysis, and energy and the environment. She will be moving her research laboratory to the Michigan State University in January 2016.