Daniel Crawford, University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, has been elected to two prestigious international organizations.

This year, Crawford was elected to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences (IAQMS), which is one of the two most prestigious groups in the field.

Crawford commented, “Current and past members of the IAQMS include more than a dozen Nobel laureates and so many other amazing names in quantum mechanics. I count several of their members among my personal role models in the field.”

The Academy sponsors a triennial conference (the International Congress of Quantum Chemistry) to highlight the most significant developments in the molecular quantum mechanics community.

The last Congress was held in Menton, France on the French Riviera in 2018. Menton is also home to the IAQMS headquarters. The next Congress will be held in 2023 in Bratislava, Slovakia, where Crawford is expected to speak as a new member of the Academy.

In addition to his new membership in IAQMS, Crawford learned of his election to the governing board of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC),  the largest international organization of computational chemists.

Crawford remarked, “WATOC is the same organization that generously awarded me the 2010 Paul A. M. Dirac Medal for the ‘Outstanding Computational and Theoretical Chemist in the World Under the Age of 40’.

The WATOC governing board is charged with various initiatives to promote computational chemistry worldwide, including sponsorship of the international triennial conference, selection of the winners of its Dirac and Schrödinger medals, and more. 

Crawford was elected at the most recent WATOC meeting in Vancouver, Canada, in early July. The next WATOC meeting will be in Oslo, Norway, in 2025.

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