Jarrold named Dow Chemical Research Professor

Martin F. Jarrold, professor of chemistry, has been named the Dow Chemical Company Research Professor in Chemistry.

Jarrold is known for his research in biological mass spectrometry, the biophysics of peptides and proteins, biological mass spectrometry and computer simulations. Specifically, he is interested in the thermodynamics and dynamics of helix formation, studies of the interactions between biomolecules and surfaces and preparation and properties of semiconductor clusters and nanocrystals. Recently his group has determined the melting points of tin particles with around 20 atoms.

He is the recipient of grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office. He has lectured across North America, Europe and Asia. Jarrold has written and co-written more than 160 articles for scientific publications.

Jarrold is the co-organizer and vice chair of the new Gordon Research Conference on Biological Molecules in Gas Phase to be held in 2001. He was the organizer and chair of the new Gordon Research Conference on Clusters, Nanocrystals and Nanostructures in 1997 and the vice-chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Metal and Semiconductor Clusters in 1995. Currently, Jarrold is a member of the advisory board for International Conference on Small Particles and Inorganic Clusters.

Jarrold joined Northwestern in 1992 after seven years with the physics research division at AT&T Bell Laboratories. From 1982 to 1985, he worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the department of chemistry at the University of California in Santa Barbara. For two of those years, Jarrold held a prestigious NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship.

At Northwestern, graduate students in Jarrold’s statistical mechanics course learn to write their own computer programs for a molecular dynamics simulation. Undergraduate students in his spectroscopy laboratory help put a practical face on quantum mechanics. In addition to his teaching duties at Northwestern, Jarrold is the director of graduate recruiting in the department of chemistry.