The 2022 Walter
Kohn Prize for quantum-mechanical materials and molecular
modeling has been awarded to Debashree Ghosh, of the Indian
Association for the Cultivation of Science in Kolkata, India.
The prize recognises her "pathbreaking work in developing
novel quantum chemical tools for materials design and the
study of biological function. Combining techniques from
physics, chemistry and biology, her work has made important
advances in our understanding of strongly correlated materials
and complex biological systems."
The ceremony will be held on
12 January 2023 at ICTP,
during the Centre’s
21st International Workshop on
Computational Physics and Materials Science: Total Energy
and Force Methods and will include an invited talk by
Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann.
Debashree Ghosh earned her MS degree in chemical sciences from
the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2005, and her
PhD degree in chemistry at Cornell University in 2010. She is
currently a professor at the School of Chemical Sciences,
Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. Her
research focuses on the development and application of methods
to understand photophysical processes in biological and
condensed phases.
The Walter Kohn Prize was established in March 2016 by ICTP
and the Quantum ESPRESSO Foundation (QEF) in honour of
Chemistry Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn, a leading condensed
matter physicist who developed density functional theory
(DFT), a method that drastically reduces the amount of
computing power needed to model the properties of complex
materials, without compromising the accuracy of a model’s
simulations. DFT has already had a big impact on a wide
variety of fields, including chemistry, molecular physics,
medicine and engineering. It also has opened the door to
contributions from scientists from disadvantaged countries who
have no access to huge supercomputers, due to its low
computing costs and the wide availability of open source
modeling software.
The prize is awarded jointly by ICTP and the QEF every two
years, but was not awarded in 2020 due to the COVID-19
pandemic outbreak.
All are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served
in the lobby after the event.
The Ceremony
will also be livestreamed from the ICTP website.