When it comes to teaching, I firmly believe that it is of utmost importance as an educator to strike a hard and delicate balance of rigor and grace when it comes to the chemical disciplines. In fact, I have always made sure to take this balance as well as the mantra of “meet students where they are and build from there” very seriously so as to provide the fairest education possible without compromising the rigor and integrity of said chemical discipline. Regardless, one issue that has remained common and persistent throughout my few years of experience is the perceived fear and struggle of undergraduate chemistry majors as it pertains to complex mathematical reasoning and often shows up when discussing the topics of kinetics, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics in both General and Physical Chemistry. In light of this, one chemical discipline that is often overlooked in a traditional curriculum is computational chemistry, which in and of itself is commonly referred to as ab initio, meaning ‘first principles.’ I believe that by introducing students early and often to computational chemistry tools, students will develop a more comprehensible understanding of the necessary quantitative reasoning in all facets of chemistry and will hopefully develop a deeper appreciation and appetite for the understanding intricate mathematics and physics which dictate all aspects of chemistry.

I am originally from the small rural town of Newington, Georgia which has a population somewhere around 300 people. As such, I believe I possess a certain understanding of the struggles that many may face from similar backgrounds. From these beginnings, I went on to graduate with a B.S. in Chemistry in 2015 from Georgia Southern University. I then went on to pursue my love of Physical Chemistry and earned a M.S. in Chemistry (2018) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry (2021) from The University of Alabama. During my computation chemistry graduate studies, I specialized in using electron structure calculations, mainly DFT and high-accuracy correlated molecular orbital theory methods like MP2 and CCSD(T), to study the acid-gas interactions. The majority of my graduate work involved close collaboration with many different research groups, both experimental and computational, through the Center for Understanding and Control of Acid Gas-Induced Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME), an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and led by the Georgia Institute of Technology. In one such project, I worked close with periodic DFT modelers at Sandia National Labs to predicted the adsorption of acid gases (H2O, SO2, and NO2) on rare earth RE-DOBDC MOFs using cluster models of M(OOCH)3, M(BDC)3, M(DOBDC)3, and M(OOCH)3H2O in which the 4f electrons of the Ln atoms are explicitly treated to determine the role of the 4f electrons in acid gas adsorption to the Ln metal centers themselves. Similar work has also been performed using cluster models of other types of MOFs in collaboration with additional periodic DFT calculations from our collaborators within UNCAGE-ME to predict the adsorption of these acid gases and the Lewis acid properties of MOFs as a means of developing reactivity correlations for these materials to aid experimental efforts within the center. I have also completed and published projects from the Dixon group that are significant contributions to the collaborative goals of UNCAGE-ME, many of which have involved a concerted effort of undergraduate research students. One project involved using high-level correlated molecular orbital theory, particularly CCSD(T), to calculate reaction coordinates for the formation of H2SO4, H2S2O3, H2SO3, and H2S2O2 from the reactions of SO3 and SO2 with H2O and H2S. This work was published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry A with a supplemental cover for that issue. Working closely experimental collaborators, I contributed towards a large effort with multiple members of our group to predict the mechanism for the initial steps of the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) of NO +NH3 using small cluster models of VxOy on TiO2 based on NMR measurements. I have also been involved in extensive experimental collaborations in which I have used correlated molecular orbital theory (MP2 and CCSD(T)) and composite methods such as G3(MP2) to predict the mechanisms of CO2 capture by silica-supported solid-state amines in the presence of H2O. During my independent career, I have also collaborated with experimental and computational groups to understand the mechanisms and products of acid-gas reactions actinides and transition metal oxides.

My current research seeks to extensively build onto many of these themes. Currently, my group will be focused on using electronic structure methods to better understand what gases are preset at the onset of gas-sequestration and to understand the interactions of SOx, NOx, COxSy gases with each other as well as metal oxides who are considered materials of interest for gas sequestration. In collaboration with other computational groups, we will also continue to investigate the formation of sulfates, sulfites, and sulfur-based acids from the interaction of SOx gases with various My group is also very eager to collaborate and provide any reaction thermodynamics or mechanistic predictions for all colleagues within Berea and beyond.

Physical chemistry, whether it be quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, or kinetics and thermodynamics, consistently proves to be a difficult and intimidating discipline for many undergraduate chemistry majors. As such, the computational nature of the work I have performed and propose can seem very overwhelming at first for undergraduate students. This was true especially for those at my graduate school institution as experienced firsthand by myself during my initial exposure during a NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in the Summer of 2015. Coupling that summer with both my graduate school and academic PUI experience, an invaluable amount of experience has been gained in working with and directly mentoring a number of undergraduate students on a variety of projects that have made significant contributions to these students’ experiences in their undergraduate studies and beyond. As such, I have accumulated a substantial amount of experience at working with and guiding undergraduate students through computational chemistry research and helping them to learn valuable quantum chemical tools, a craft I am excited to continue perfecting here at Berea College.