Peter Rossky
Rice University
Dean, Wiess School of Natural Sciences
Peter Rossky is the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair in Natural Sciences, Professor of Chemistry and of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences at Rice University. Professor Rossky is a theoretical chemist whose research focuses on the structure and dynamics of chemical transformations in condensed phase materials, including liquids, polymers, and molecular clusters. He is particularly interested in the role of liquid environments, particularly water, on synthetic and natural chemistry. Professor Rossky has pioneered the inclusion of electronic and nuclear quantum effects into simulation. His current work emphasizes tracking the evolution and dissipation of energy in electronically excited materials. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, a former Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, and a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. Professor Rossky received a BA in chemistry, summa cum laude, from Cornell University and a PhD in chemical physics from Harvard. He joined the University of Texas at Austin faculty in chemistry in 1979 and the Rice faculty as Dean of the Wiess School in 2014.