Dave Thirumalai

Collie-Welch Professor of Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin and the chair of the department.
Prior to moving to UT Austin in 2016, he was a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Maryland, where he spent most of his independent academic career. His research is in theoretical and computational chemistry spanning all aspects from quantum calculations, to polymer dynamics, to computational modeling of biomolecular complexes, to the development of kinetic models for molecular processes. He is one of the pioneers of the coarse-grained modeling of biomolecules, which opened the doors to the investigation of the dynamics of very large molecular complexes on timescales comparable to in vitro experiments. He published more than 300 papers in top journals such as JACS, PNAS, Science, which garnered in excess of 20,000 citations. His scientific accomplishments have been recognized with many awards such as the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Humboldt Research Award, and the ACS Theoretical Chemistry Award. The large breadth of his research endeavors earned him the election to the Royal Society of Chemistry, and as a fellow of both the Biophysical Society and the American Physical Society.