Research Director
Emily A. Carter
Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering & Applied and Computational Mathematics
Professor Carter is the Founding Director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. She also holds a joint appointment as a Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment as well as Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics. She is also an associated faculty member in Chemistry, Chemical and Biological Engineering, the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering (PICSciE), Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM).
BACKGROUND
Professor Carter is a theorist/computational scientist first known for her research combining ab initio quantum chemistry with molecular dynamics and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, especially as applied to etching and growth of silicon. Later, she merged quantum mechanics, applied mathematics, and solid state physics in her linear scaling orbital-free density functional theory (OFDFT) that can treat unprecedented numbers of atoms quantum mechanically, her embedded correlated wavefunction and ab initio DFT+U theories that combine quantum chemistry with periodic DFT to treat condensed matter ground and excited electronic states and strongly correlated materials, and her fast algorithms for ab initio multi-reference correlated electronic wavefunction methods that permit accurate thermochemical kinetics and excited states to be predicted for large molecules. She was also a pioneer in quantum-based multiscale simulations of materials that eliminate macroscopic empirical consitutive laws and have led to new insights into, e.g., shock Hugoniot behavior of iron and stress-corrosion cracking of steel. Earlier, her doctoral research furnished new understanding into homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, while her postdoctoral work presented the condensed matter simulation community with the widely used rare event sampling method known as the Blue Moon Ensemble. Her more recent research into how materials fail due to chemical and mechanical effects furnished concepts for how to optimally protect these materials against failure. Her current research is focused entirely on enabling discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy, including converting sunlight to electricity and fuels, providing clean electricity from solid oxide fuel cells, clean and efficient combustion of biofuels, and optimizing lightweight metal alloys for fuel-efficient vehicles and fusion reactor walls.
Professor Carter received her B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1982 (graduating Phi Beta Kappa) and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 1987. After a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder, she spent the next 16 years on the faculty of UCLA as a Professor of Chemistry and later of Materials Science and Engineering. She moved to Princeton University in 2004. She holds courtesy appointments in Chemistry, Chemical and Biological Engineering, and three interdisciplinary institutes (PICSciE, PRISM, and PEI). The author of over 270 publications, she has delivered more than 430 invited lectures all over the world and serves on numerous international advisory boards spanning a wide range of disciplines. Her scholarly work has been recognized by a number of national and international awards and honors from a variety of entities, including the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Vacuum Society, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. She received the 2007 ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research, was elected in 2008 to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, in 2009 was elected to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, in 2011 was awarded the August Wilhelm von Hofmann Lecture of the German Chemical Society, and in 2012 received a Docteur Honoris Causa from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.
FEATURED HONORS
· 2013 Francis Clifford Phillips Lectureship, Xi Chapter of the Phi Lambda Upsilon National Honorary Chemical Society and the Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh
· 2013 Tedori-Callinan Lectureship, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania
· 2013 W. Allan Powell Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, University of Richmond
· 2012 Docteur Honoris Causa from L'Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL)
· 2012 Fellow of the American Chemical Society
· 2012 Honorary Mathematics and Physical Sciences Distinguished Lecturer, National Science Foundation
· 2012 Dean's Distinguished Lecture, College of Science and Technology, Temple University
· 2011 MIT Distinguished Speaker in Computational Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
· 2011 August Wilhelm von Hofmann Lecture Award, German Chemical Society
· 2011 Jerome B. Cohen Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
· 2010 Noyes Lecturer, University of Texas, Austin
· 2009 Member, International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (www.iaqms.org)
· 2008 Member, National Academy of Sciences (www.nationalacademies.org)
· 2008 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (www.amacad.org)
· 2008 Welch Distinguished Lecturer
· 2008 Coulson Lecturer, University of Georgia
· 2008 Kivelson Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles
· 2007 American Chemical Society Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research
· 2004 Fellow of the Institute of Physics
· 2000 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
· 1998 Fellow of the American Physical Society
· 1996 Dr. Lee Visiting Research Fellow in the Sciences, Christ Church, Oxford University
· 1995 Peter Mark Memorial Award, American Vacuum Society
· 1995 Fellow of the American Vacuum Society
· 1993 Medal of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science