Interview Professor Henry Fritz Schaefer

Professor Henry Schaefer is the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia. Schaefer moved to Georgia in 1987 from the University of California at Berkeley, where he had been since 1969. 

Schaefer readily remembers his reaction when Lineberger s PES study of methylene appeared, indicating a very large singlet-triplet gap, much larger than his computational prediction. His first response was that Lineberger was 

Schaefer holds to his assertion made in his Science article that methylene remains the paradigm for computational chemistry. He notes that one could point to Kolos paper on Hj or Davidson s doctoral thesis that demonstrated a double minimum in an excited state of H2. But he maintains the prominence of methylene Ours was the first non-linear triatomic. Organic chemists were interested in methylene lots of experiments were available. The computational studies on methylene corrected two serious interpretations of experimental data, and clearly demonstrated that computational chemistry can hold its own with experiment. Because of the impact of this work, Schaefer considers his methylene studies to be his most important contribution to science. We were at the right place, at the right time. There s a brashness about it that set it apart.  

Schaefer has few regrets when it comes to missed scientific opportunities. The one in particnlar that he notes is Cgg- He met with Professor Rick Smalley days after the discovery of Cgg, but didn t get excited abont it. 

Nonetheless, he continues to actively pursue new projects, welcoming new students into the group and pushing forward. Why do we study chemistry he asks. We want to know answers to qualitative questions. That is what distinguishes us from physics.  

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