David J. Wales
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

David John Wales (born 1963) FRS One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: FRSC is a professor of
Chemical Physics Chemical physics is a subdiscipline of chemistry and physics that investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical process ...
, in the Department of Chemistry at the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
.


Education

Wales was educated at
Newport Free Grammar School Joyce Frankland Academy, Newport, formerly Newport Free Grammar School, is a school in Newport, Essex, England. It was founded in 1588. The school is a mixed secondary school with a sixth form. It previously existed in different forms includin ...
followed by the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
where he was awarded an open scholarship to study at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...
receiving his BA degree in 1985. He went on to complete a PhD on
cluster chemistry In chemistry, an atom cluster (or simply cluster) is an ensemble of bound atoms or molecules that is intermediate in size between a simple molecule and a nanoparticle; that is, up to a few nanometers (nm) in diameter. The term ''microcluster ...
, awarded in 1988 for research supervised by Anthony J. Stone. In 2004 he was awarded a ScD degree from Cambridge.


Career and research

During 1989, Wales was an English-Speaking Union Lindemann Trust Fellow at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, doing
postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...
in collaboration with R. Stephen Berry. He returned to a
research fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a pr ...
ship at Downing College, Cambridge in 1990, was a
Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...
Tercentenary Fellow in 1991, and a
Royal Society University Research Fellowship __NOTOC__ The Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) is a research fellowship awarded to outstanding early career scientists in the United Kingdom who are judged by the Royal Society to have the potential to become leaders in their fi ...
(URF) from 1991 to 1998. He was appointed a Lecturer in Cambridge in 1998, and Professor of Chemical Physics in 2008. Wales' research investigates
energy landscape An energy landscape is a mapping of possible states of a system. The concept is frequently used in physics, chemistry, and biochemistry, e.g. to describe all possible conformations of a molecular entity, or the spatial positions of interacting m ...
s, with applications to chemical biology, spectroscopy, clusters, machine learning, solids and
surfaces A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. Surface or surfaces may also refer to: Mathematics *Surface (mathematics), a generalization of a plane which needs not be flat * Sur ...
. Wales is the author of the textbook ''Energy Landscapes: Applications to Clusters, Biomolecules and Glasses'' and a co-author of ''Introduction to Cluster Chemistry'' with
Michael Mingos David Michael Patrick Mingos, FRS (born 6 August 1944) is a British chemist and academic. He was Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford from 1999 to 2009, and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Education Mingos attended ...
. His research has been funded by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant in 2010), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).


Awards and honours

Wales was awarded the Cambridge University Norrish Prize for Chemistry and the Gonville and Caius College Schuldham Plate in 1985, the
Meldola Medal and Prize The Meldola Medal and Prize was awarded annually from 1921 to 1979 by the Chemical Society and from 1980 to 2008 by the Royal Society of Chemistry to a British chemist who was under 32 years of age for promising original investigations in chemist ...
in 1992 and the
Tilden Prize The Tilden Prize is an award that is made by the Royal Society of Chemistry for advances in chemistry. The award was established in 1939 and commemorates Sir William A. Tilden, a prominent British chemist. The prize runs annually with up to three ...
in 2015, both by the
Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Instit ...
. He was a Baker Lecturer at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 2005, the Inaugural Henry Frank Lecturer at the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
in 2007, Distinguished Lecturer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA in 2018, and was awarded a Visiting Miller Professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, for 2020. He was the first recipient of the ICReDD Award, commemorating Professor Akira Suzuki, at Hokkaido University in 2020. Wales was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016 and is also a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) is an award conferred by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the United Kingdom. FRSC award Achieving Fellow status in the chemical profession denotes to the wider community a high level of ...
. He received a Humboldt Research Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2020.


Academic appointments

2020 International Chair, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Cote d’Azur. 2017- Chair of the Theory Group, Department of Chemistry, Cambridge University. 2014 Telluride Science Research Centre 30th Anniversary Lecturer. 2013-2018 Institute for Molecular Science, Japan, International Advisory Board. 2012 Chair of Inaugural ESF Energy Landscapes Meeting. 2017 Visiting Professor, Universidad de La Laguna. 2011-2012 Visiting Professor, Université de Lyon. 2006 Visiting Professor, Boston University. 2006 Visiting Professor, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse. 1999 Visiting Professor, Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay. 1999 Visiting Professor, Harvard University.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wales, David John 1963 births Living people Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry 21st-century British chemists 20th-century British chemists