About
Professor David Wales is a leading academic in the field of chemical physics at the University of Cambridge, holding the title of Professor of Chemical Physics and serving as a Fellow in Chemistry at Downing College. His research focuses on energy landscapes, a framework central to understanding complex systems such as protein folding and structural glasses.
His work spans quantum chemistry, spectroscopy, and computational modeling, with notable contributions to mapping reaction graphs for small molecules and analyzing free energy surfaces for proteins. Recent applications extend to interdisciplinary domains like machine learning in medical discharge predictions.
Scientific Awards:
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
Research Trends: In 2016, his publications highlighted energy landscapes in diverse contexts: hydrogen trapping in beryllium clusters, molecular glass dynamics, quantum vibrational transitions in dimers, kinetic network analysis for mathematical problems, particle packing defects, and medical applications. These works bridge theoretical chemistry, computational physics, and applied mathematics.
