Nice to meet you. I’m James, a theoretical chemist working in the Computational Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory at RIKEN hosted by Dr. Seiji Yunoki as a Foreign Postdoctoral Researcher (FPR). I appreciate the opportunity to let you get to know me a little. I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. I did my undergraduate at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada where I obtained a degree in Mathematics as well as a degree in Biomolecular Chemistry. During this time I developed a fondness for mathematics and endeavoured to use it to solve real problems in the realm of chemistry. This led me to joining Prof. Paul W. Ayers’ theoretical chemistry group at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada for graduate school. As a graduate student I worked on a variety of subjects within the field of nonrelativistic quantum chemistry. Using mathematics as my main tool I concentrated on developing methods for finding ways to obtain near exact solutions to the electronic Schrödinger equation at low computational cost as well as formulating methods to provide chemical intuition from the framework of quantum mechanics. Succinctly, my primary research interests are:

1. Developing methods that accurately approximate the electronic structure of molecules, especially methods that are based directly on the underlying electronic Schrödinger equation. (I am also working the Schrödinger equation for nucleons and the Dirac-Coulomb equation for relativistic electrons). At a mathematical level, I am interested in developing computational tools that are required to achieve this goal, like methods for very accurate numerical integration in spaces of very high dimension.
2. Developing computational facile models that provide intuition, with a strong preference for models that are derived directly from formal mathematics. My goal is to develop the mathematical foundations for chemical concepts that are taken for granted (e.g., the chemical bond, and the concept of atoms in molecules) and to answer chemical questions such as what makes an atom reactive, whether removing an electron from a molecule can lead to interesting local increases in electron density, etc..
3. Using mathematical theorems and analytic solutions to model equations to gain insight into chemistry. For example, I have worked to find analytic solutions to exactly solvable equations related to electronic structure, prove properties of analytic solutions, demonstrate limitations of approximate solution methods, prove whether seemingly different alternative approaches are in fact equivalent, etc..

After finishing my JSPS fellowship I then moved to the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University in Beijing, China as a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Postdoctoral fellow hosted by Prof. Wenjian Liu. I joined this group to learn more about relativistic effects and how they apply to chemistry. I am always interested in approaching the exact result so learning how to include effects left out of nonrelativistic quantum chemistry seemed to be the logical next step.

I am looking forward to being an active member in iTHES, and I am looking forward to meeting you and other members of iTHES and know we will find mutual interests for us to discuss and collaborate on.