Joel Bowman, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Emory University, received the Herschbach Prize for Theory, presented this summer at the Dynamics of Molecular Collisions 2013 Conference. The prize is named for Nobel Prize winning chemist Dudley Herschbach, who describes the award’s criteria as “bold and architectural work” that “addresses fundamental, challenging, frontier questions … and typically excites evangelical fervor that recruits many followers.”
Bowman also was recently elected to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences, and is lauded in the August 15 issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry, the leading journal in its field. This special “Festschrift Issue” includes a tribute article to Bowman.
Bowman is considered “one of the founding fathers of theoretical reaction dynamics,” the tribute authors write. More recently, they add, he has made exceptional contributions to modeling potential energy surfaces, or PESs: “Without the PESs emerging from Joel’s group, many theorists would be unable to apply powerful methods of modern quantum dynamics to some of the most challenging problems of great current interest.” One of the many applications of Bowman's work in PESs includes weather forecasting and cloud formation.