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Prof. Dr. David Leitner

Portrait of David Leitner

University of Nevada
Theoretical Chemical Physics and Biophysical Chemistry

External Senior Fellow
May 2014 – August 2014

E-Mail: dml@unr.edu

Last Update: 31.08.2014

Curriculum Vitae

David Leitner carried out his undergraduate studies in chemical engineering and chemistry at Cornell University, then pursued graduate work in chemical physics at the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. for theoretical studies of dynamic and thermodynamic properties of rare gas clusters working with R. Stephen Berry.  He was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg, where he worked with Lorenz Cederbaum, later a research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he worked with Peter Wolynes.  Since 2000 he has been at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he is currently Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Chemical Physics Program.

David Leitner is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.  He was awarded a Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award for distinguished new faculty in the chemical sciences in 2000 and a Research Innovation Award from the Research Corporation in 2001.  Leitner served as Secretary/Treasurer of the American Physical Society’s Division of Chemical Physics from 2010 to 2013.

Areas of research include theoretical and computational studies of energy flow in molecules, particularly in large biological molecules, and its influence on chemical reaction kinetics.  Other areas include theoretical approaches to address thermal transport on the nanoscale, and computational studies of terahertz spectroscopy and dynamics of solvated biomolecules.

Selected Publications

FRIAS Project