Tom Ziegler

University of Calgary

CV Highlights

• Professor, Chemistry

• Awards: Steacie Award (Canadian Society of Chemistry - 2005), Schrodinger medal for the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists (2004), Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry (2002)

• Research Interests: The general area of theoretical inorganic chemistry and the development of new computational methods

Molecular Modeling Tools

Catalytic research, like many other fields of science, is charting a slightly new course these days through its use of computational methodologies and technologies. For the past 25 years, Tom Ziegler's research group has investigated this integration of computation and the art of designing catalysts. His group is developing molecular modeling tools that have the potential to benefit experimental labs around the world. Ziegler's findings also have the potential to reach beyond the research community into industry as his team applies its methodology to an industrial catalyst. Computational catalyst design has proven itself to be a cost-saving alternative to industry's traditional trial-and-error approaches.

As Ziegler's team strives to conduct accurate calculations involving larger molecules (50 atoms or more), WestGrid resources have supported the team's work. This support has come in the form of access to computing time, memory, and highly efficient processor-to-processor communication. Ziegler's theory development projects also rely on WestGrid's parallel architectures for the implementation and testing of his group's coding.