We are a group of quantum chemists captivated by the way light can drive, control, and probe chemical reactions as well as by the way that chemical reactions can produce light. We design broadly applicable electronic structure theories that tackle the open theoretical challenge of predicting the mechanisms and outcomes of complex photochemical reactions from first principles. The mechanistic insights from these developments are then be employed to accelerate the advancement of technologies to use light for on-demand inexpensive power and for directed stereospecific synthesis.
The theories we develop are then turned into highly efficient programs (written in modern C++) that enable fully exploratory simulations of photochemistry akin to numerical “experiments”, including associated spectroscopy that, in collaboration with experimental chemists, supply the microscopic details needed to answer fundamental questions governing photo(electro)chemistry in molecular materials that have implications in chemistry, physics, material science, biology, and medicine.
