Dr. Eric R. Bittner has been awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Chemistry. Dr. Bittner received his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago under the supervision of Professor John Light. Dr. Bittner will continue research at the Universityof Texas at Austin under the sponsorship of Professor Peter Rossky. His postdoctoral research will target quantum simulations in liquids. He will develop a dynamical description of transient quantum phase coherences between a solvated system and its surrounding bath. Specifically, he will examine the relaxation of an excited electron in water where relaxation of the electron occurs as a series of non-adiabatic transitions from one electronic state to another mediated by the breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for the nuclear motion of the solvent molecules. The work will contribute to the development of a theory of coherent control of dynamics in a realistic chemical condensed phase. The Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Chemistry Program is viewed as an important infrastructural program designed to broaden the knowledge and experience of new Ph. D.s and attract them into meaningful careers in contemporary chemical research and teaching.
