Robert J. Silbey

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Robert James Silbey (born October 19, 1940 in Brooklyn - † October 27, 2011 ) was an American chemist ( physical chemistry ).

Silbey graduated from Brooklyn College with a bachelor's degree in 1961 and received a PhD in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1965 . As a post-doctoral student , he was at the University of Wisconsin with Joseph Hirschfelder . In 1966 he became an assistant professor and in 1977 professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . From 1990 to 1995 he headed the chemistry faculty there and from 1998 to 2000 he was director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering. From 2000 to 2007 he was Dean of Science (Dean of the School of Science).

He dealt with quantum chemistry, theory of excited states in solids and molecules, theory of relaxation and nonlinear optical materials (glasses, solids, polymers) including spectroscopy and energy transfer in these materials. He was one of the first to show how the conductivity of conjugated polymers is generated by quantum excitations such as polarons , bipolarons and solitons . Among other things, he developed the Variatonal Polaron Transformation in this context with Robert Harris. He kept a close connection to the experiment and was able to use his theory to explain experimental data in hole burning , photon echo and in the spectroscopy of individual molecules. Most recently, he turned to quantum dynamics and the energy transfer in photosynthesis, especially in the initial stage of collecting photons and the subsequent energy transfer.

In 2007 he received the Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize . He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society .

In 1989 he received the Humboldt Research Award and in 1992 the Max Planck Research Award . 1972/73 and 1986 he was visiting professor in Utrecht. He was an honorary doctor of Brooklyn College and the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan.

His wife Susan Silbey is a professor of sociology and anthropology at MIT. With her he had two daughters.

He was a Sloan Research Fellow from 1968 to 1970 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 1972/73 . From 1971 to 1976 he was the Camille and Henry Dreyfuß Foundation Teacher Scholar.

Fonts

  • with R. Alberty, M. Bawendi: Physical Chemistry, 4th edition, Wiley 2004

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life and career data according to Pamela Kalte u. a. American Men And Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ Harris, Sibley, Variational calculations of the dynamics of a two-level system interacting with a bath, J. Chem. Phys., Volume 80, 1984, pp. 2615-2617
personal data
SURNAME Silbey, Robert J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silbey, Robert James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 2011