Michele Parrinello

Summary

Michele Parrinello (born 7 September 1945) is an Italian physicist particularly known for his work in molecular dynamics (the computer simulation of physical movements of atoms and molecules). Parrinello and Roberto Car were awarded the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the Sidney Fernbach Award in 2009 for their continuing development of the Car–Parrinello method, first proposed in their seminal 1985 paper,[2] "Unified Approach for Molecular Dynamics and Density-Functional Theory".[3] They have continued to receive awards for this breakthrough, most recently the Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences[4] and the 2021 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry.[5]

Michele Parrinello
Born (1945-09-07) 7 September 1945 (age 78)
Messina, Italy
Awards Fellow of the Royal Society
EPS Europhysics Prize (1990)
Dirac Prize (2009)
Sidney Fernbach Award (2009)
Marcel Benoist Prize (2011)
Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences (2017)
Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) (2021)
European Chemistry Gold Medal (2020)[1]

Parrinello also co-authored highly cited publications on "polymorphic transitions in single crystals"[6] and "canonical sampling through velocity rescaling."[7]

Life and career edit

Michele Parrinello was born in Messina (Sicily) and received his Laurea in physics from the University of Bologna in 1968. After working at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, the IBM research laboratory in Zurich, and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, he was appointed Professor of Computational Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in 2001, a position he also holds at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano.[8] In 2004 he was elected to Great Britain's Royal Society. In 2011 he was awarded the Marcel Benoist Prize.[9] In 2020 he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) in Chemistry.[5] As of 2023, he has received over 140,000 scientific citations and has an h-index of 162, which is one of the highest among all scientists. As of 2023, at the age of 78, there are still 6 PhD students working in his group.[10]

Selected notable contributions edit

References edit

  1. ^ "2020 European Chemistry Gold Medal will be awarded to Prof. Michele Parrinello". EuChemS. March 2, 2020. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  2. ^ Car, Richard; Parrinello, Michele (1985). "Unified approach for molecular dynamics and density-functional theory". Physical Review Letters. 55 (22): 2471–2474. Bibcode:1985PhRvL..55.2471C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.55.2471. PMID 10032153.
  3. ^ "Car and Parrinello Named 2009 Fernbach Winners". IEEE Computer Society. 15 October 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-11-11.
  4. ^ Linda Wang (29 May 2017). Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences to Michele Parrinello. Chemical & Engineering News. Accessed August 2021.
  5. ^ a b "The Franklin Institute Awards: Michele Parrinello". fi.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  6. ^ Parrinello, Michele; Rahman, Aneesur (1981). "Polymorphic transitions in single crystals: A new molecular dynamics method". Journal of Applied Physics. 52 (12): 7182–7190. Bibcode:1981JAP....52.7182P. doi:10.1063/1.328693.
  7. ^ Bussi, Giovanni; Donadio, Davide; Parrinello, Michele (2007). "Canonical sampling through velocity rescaling". The Journal of Chemical Physics. 126 (1): 014101. arXiv:0803.4060. Bibcode:2007JChPh.126a4101B. doi:10.1063/1.2408420. PMID 17212484. S2CID 23411901.
  8. ^ Profile: Michele Parrinello. Biography. Università della Svizzera italiana. Accessed August 2021.
  9. ^ "The man who speaks with molecules". RSI (in Italian). 2011-09-20. Archived from the original on 2014-11-08.
  10. ^ ""I simulate the behavior of atoms and molecules using the calculator" – Interview with Professor Michele Parrinello". Ticinolive (in Italian). 2023-12-13. Retrieved 2024-04-08.

Further reading edit

  • Andreoni, W.; Marx, D.; Sprik, M. (2005). "Editorial: a tribute to Michele Parrinello: from physics via chemistry to biology", ChemPhysChem, Volume 6, Issue 9 (Special Issue: Parrinello Festschrift)
  • Car, R. and Parrinello, M. (1985). "Unified Approach for Molecular Dynamics and Density-Functional Theory" Physical Review Letters, Vol. 55, Issue 22
  • Kühne, T. D.; Krack, M.; Mohamed, F. R. and Parrinello, M. (2007). "Efficient and Accurate Car-Parrinello-like Approach to Born-Oppenheimer Molecular Dynamics" Physical Review Letters, Vol. 98, 066401

External links edit

  • Parrinello Research Group at ETH Zürich at the Wayback Machine (archived 2023-08-16).
  • Profile (and CV) at the Università della Svizzera italiana.