J. Daniel Gezelter // People // Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry // University of Notre Dame

J. Daniel Gezelter

Molecular Dynamics of Complex Interfaces

Biography

2020-present: Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies
2015-present: Professor, University of Notre Dame
2005-2015: Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame
1999-2005: Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame
1996-1999: Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Department of Chemistry, Columbia University
1995: Ph.D. in Chemistry University of California, Berkeley
1990: CPS in Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
1989: B.S. in Chemistry & Philosophy, Duke University

Selected Awards

2020: Shilts/Leonard Award for Outstanding Teaching in the College of Science
2013, 2020: Rev. Edmund P. Joyce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching
2002: National Science Foundation CAREER Award
1999: Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award
1990-1993: National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
1989-1990: Churchill Scholar

Research Interests

Research in the Gezelter group involves theoretical and computational studies of the dynamics of complex, condensed-matter systems. The mechanism of heat and mass transport at complex interfaces is of particular interest. The group simulates metallic nanoparticles in liquid environments, lipid bilayers, the phase transitions of water, and glass-forming metals.

The major goal is to arrive at simple models that can explain the unexpected and emergent behavior of these systems. A second, but equally important goal is to develop and test novel theoretical methods that will advance computer simulation as a tool for research in the chemical sciences.

Because the systems studied are often complex many-body systems, it is necessary to utilize the analytical methods of statistical mechanics as well as state-of-the-art methods of computer simulation. A large component of the research in the group is the development of efficient algorithms to perform molecular dynamics simulations and to obtain useful information from them. We are particularly interested in O(N) methods for computing electrostatic interactions as well as non-equilibrium simulation methods.

Recent Publications

Shavalier, S. and Gezelter, J. D. "Thermal Transport in Citrate-Capped Gold Nanostructures using a Polarizable Force Field" 2022, Journal of Physical Chemistry C 126 (30), pp 12742-12754. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.2c01333 , ChemRxiv: 10.26434/chemrxiv-2022-7xp7g
Duraes, A. and Gezelter, J. D. "Separation of Enantiomers through Local Vorticity: A Screw Model Mechanism" 2021 Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 125 (42), pp.11709-11716. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c07127.
Bhattarai, H.; Newman, K. E. and Gezelter, J. D. "The Role of Polarizability in the Interfacial Thermal Conductance at the Gold-Water Interface" 2020 Journal of Chemical Physics, 153 (20), 204703. DOI: 10.1063/5.0027847.
Neidhart, S. M. and Gezelter, J. D. "Thermal Conductivity of Gold-Phenylethanethiol (Au144PET60) Nanoarrays: A Molecular Dynamics Study" 2020 Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 124 (5), pp.3389-3395. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b10895.
Bhattarai, H.; Newman, K. E. and Gezelter, J. D. "Polarizable Potentials for Metals: The Density Readjusting Embedded Atom Method (DR-EAM)" 2019 Physical Review B, 99 (9), 094106. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.99.094106.
Louden, P. B. and Gezelter, J. D. "Why is Ice Slippery? Simulations of Shear Viscosity of the Quasi-Liquid Layer on Ice" 2018 Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 9 (13), pp.3686-3691. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b01339.

Software

The software we develop to carry out our research is available for free under a permissive Open Source license. We do this because some of the code may be useful to other researchers, and it is important allow skeptical inquiry into the methods we used to obtain results. The only way to do this is to provide the code and data.

Many links to scientific software (and discussions on a wide range of other topics) can be found at The OpenScience Project, which is also run by Dr. Gezelter.

OpenMD, an open source molecular dynamics engine, is our group's primary molecular dynamics code and is available with a permissive open source license.

OpenMD web pages: http://openmd.org

Git access: OpenMD

Jmol is a Java-based viewer for computational chemistry that was originally developed in Gezelter's lab. Jmol development is now in the hands of the Jmol development team, and is available under the GNU public license.

Jmol web pages: http://jmol.sf.net