Todd Martinez elected to the National Academy of Sciences for outstanding contributions to research

Congratulations to Todd Martinez for being elected to the National Academy of Sciences for outstanding contributions to research.  The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars. Established by an Act of Congress, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. Scientists are elected by their peers to membership in the NAS for outstanding contributions to research. There are currently 2,347 active members and 487 foreign associates.  Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States.

Professor Martínez was born in Amityville, New York, but spent most of his childhood in Central America and the Caribbean. His chemical curiosity benefitted tremendously from the relaxed safety standards in Central American chemical supply houses, giving him unfettered access to strong acids and bases. When he also became interested in computation, limited or nonexistent computer access forced him to write and debug computer programs on paper. Today, Prof. Martínez combines these interests by working toward theoretical and computational modeling and design of molecules. Martínez received his PhD in chemistry from UCLA in 1994. After postdoctoral study at UCLA and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1996. In 2009, he joined the faculty at Stanford, where he is now the Ehrsam and Franklin Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Photon Science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has received numerous awards for his contributions, including a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly known as the “genius award”). He is co-editor of Annual Reviews in Physical Chemistry, associate editor of The Journal of Chemical Physics, and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Current research in the Martínez lab aims to make molecular modeling both predictive and routine. New approaches to interactive molecular simulation are being developed, in which users interact with a virtual-reality based molecular modeling kit that fully understands quantum mechanics. New techniques to discover heretofore unknown chemical reactions are being developed and tested, exploiting the many efficient methods that the Martínez group has introduced for solving quantum mechanical problems quickly, using a combination of physical/chemical insights and commodity videogaming hardware. For more details, please visit http://mtzweb.stanford.edu