Professor Gregory Engel (The University of Chicago) gave the 2019 Richard Bernstein Lecture on April 8, 2019.
In his lecture titled “Tracking Ultrafast Dynamics and Transport at the Mesoscale: From Coherent Dynamics in Photosynthesis to Optical Resonance Imaging”, Engel presented his group’s recent work on capturing the initial events of photosynthesis and energy transfer. Select photos from the event can be viewed below and an on-line photo gallery can be viewed here.
Engel was introduced by his former graduate student Professor Justin Caram, now an assistant professor of physical chemistry at UCLA. Caram studied quantum coherence using multidimensional spectroscopies when he was a Ph.D. student in the Engel group at the University of Chicago. The lecture was followed by a question-and-answer period and a reception in the Young Hall Cafe Commons.
Engel’s lecture was titled “Tracking Ultrafast Dynamics and Transport at the Mesoscale: From Coherent Dynamics in Photosynthesis to Optical Resonance Imaging”.
(Left) Professor Justin Caram introduced Engel, his Ph.D. mentor when he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. (Right) The Young Hall conference room was filled to capacity for Engel’s lecture.
(Left) Professor Françoise Remacle (University of Liège) and physical chemistry professor Dr. Raphael Levine, a friend and collaborator of Richard Bernstein’s. (Right) Engel with physical chemistry professors Dr. Anastassia Alexandrova and Dr. William Gelbart.
(Left) Engel and Caram at the reception following the lecture. (Right) Engel and Caram with graduate students Richard Sportsman, Hannah Friedman, and Anthony Sica.
About Professor Gregory Engel
– Gregory Engel is Professor in the Department of Chemistry, the James Franck Institute, and the Institute of Biophysical Dynamics. His research group focuses on new strategies to observe, measure, and control excited state reactivity. Using spectrometers of their own design, the Engel Group explores bio-inspired design principles for steering excitonic transport, open quantum dynamics, and photochemical reaction dynamics. The group’s scientific approach involves parallel efforts in theory, spectroscopy, biophysics, and synthesis. To learn more about Engel’s research, visit his group’s website.
About the Richard Bernstein Lectures
– Professor Richard Bernstein (1923 – 1990) was a much-honored professor of physical chemistry at UCLA from 1983 until his death in 1990 at the age of 66. He was known for pioneering molecular beam studies of the ultrafast processes that occur in chemical reactions. The Bernstein Lectureship Fund was established in 1991 by his friends, family and colleagues for a physical chemistry lecture in his memory. Read more about Bernstein in his biography written by his UCLA colleagues Professors Rafael Levine and Charles Knobler.
Penny Jennings, Communications Manager, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
