Neepa T. Maitra | |
---|---|
Born | September 1972 |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Awards | NSF Career Award |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | Hunter College and Rutgers University-Newark |
Website | https://sites.rutgers.edu/maitra-group/ |
Neepa T. Maitra is a theoretical physicist and was a professor of physics at Hunter College of the City University of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. [1] She now works as a professor at Rutgers, in the field of theoretical chemical physics. [2] She is most well known for her contributions to theoretical chemistry and chemical physics, especially in the development of accurate functionals in time-dependent density functional theory and correlated electron-ion dynamics.
Maitra was born in September 1972, raised in New Zealand, [3] and completed her bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Otago. She went on to get her Ph.D. in physics at Harvard University in the lab of Eric "Rick" Heller [4] and postdoctoral at the University of California, Berkeley, and Rutgers University. Maitra is currently in the Department of Physics at Rutgers University-Newark. [5]
Time-dependent density functional theory is an area to investigate the properties of various functionals and has a wide range of implications and applications. [6]
Exact factorization approach is a way to explore numerical stability of equations, and improve understanding of exact potentials and equations. [6]
Polaritonic chemistry is a field that arose from manipulating molecules. Maitra's group has been investigating these phenomena through an extension of the exact factorization approach. [6]
At the CECAM workshop on Triggering Out-of-Equilibrium Dynamics in Molecular Systems in Lausanne, Switzerland in March 2023, Maitra participated and gave an invited talk remotely. [7] In August 2023, Maitra presented remotely at the Progress in Non-Equilibrium Green’s Function Workshop in Orebro, Sweden discussing recent work on perspectives on TDDFT beyond linear response. [8]
Maitra received an NSF Career Award for her work in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry. [9]
Maitra received an NSF Award for her work on Molecules in Classical and Quantized Fields. [10]
Maitra was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2024 for "fundamental contributions to the development of time-dependent density functional theory, identifying rigorous properties of the time-dependent exchange-correlation functional, and seminal work on the correlated motion of electrons and nuclei beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation."(From APS)
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses computer simulations to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses methods of theoretical chemistry incorporated into computer programs to calculate the structures and properties of molecules, groups of molecules, and solids. The importance of this subject stems from the fact that, with the exception of some relatively recent findings related to the hydrogen molecular ion, achieving an accurate quantum mechanical depiction of chemical systems analytically, or in a closed form, is not feasible. The complexity inherent in the many-body problem exacerbates the challenge of providing detailed descriptions of quantum mechanical systems. While computational results normally complement information obtained by chemical experiments, it can occasionally predict unobserved chemical phenomena.
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