This three-year award supports U.S.-France cooperative research in theoretical and computational chemistry between James T. Hynes of the University of Colorado and Thu- Hoa Tran-Thi of the Laboratory for Molecular Chemistry at the French National Center for Scientific Research. and the French Center for Atomic Energy in Saclay, France. The objective is to provide the first ultrafast femtosecond spectroscopy experimental results and quantum chemical/molecular calculations for reaction dynamics of aromatic organic acids in water. The project takes advantage of complementary French expertise and provides U.S. access to femtosecond experiments in Saclay.