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Jonathon Vandezande

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Awards 2018

Jonathon Vandezande, a recent doctoral candidate in computational and quantum chemistry, has established a record of distinction in both academics and independent research. With a creative understanding of how to overcome scientific challenges, he has shown a strong ability to bring chemical insight into reaction mechanisms. During his time at UGA, he co-authored four papers on the design of catalysts for the reduction of carbon dioxide, and he has recently published another manuscript on the mechanistic pathway of the catalyst. He also collaborated extensively with experimentalists, using computations to illuminate their results. He continues to tackle new challenges as shown by his recent research on spin-orbit splitting in p-block elements. His work with the developmental computer code (BAGEL) indicates an ability to tackle complex problems, helping developers improve their code and learn the intricacies of relativistic quantum mechanics. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute für Kohlenforschung in Mulheim an der Ruhr, Germany.