Interview Professor Weston Thatcher Borden

Professor Wes Borden holds the Welch Chair at the University of North Texas, which he assumed in 2004. He previously spent the bulk of his academic career at the University of Washington. 

Longuet-Higgins, learning the proper way to do theoretical chemistry—only those calculations that could be performed on the back of an envelope. When Borden returned to Harvard as a graduate student, his PhD adviser, E. J. Corey, encouraged him to continue his theoretical work. 

After receiving his PhD in 1968, Borden joined the faculty at Harvard. Although he had a largely experimental research program, Borden taught a course in theoretical chemistry. The lecture notes for this course became a textbook, entitled Modem Molecular Orbital Theory for Organic Chemists. 

Borden was not to conduct his first ab initio calculation until he joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1973. There he began a very fruitful collaboration with Professor Ernest Davidson. Collaborative research remains a signature feature of Borden s career. 

Borden was interested in the PES of trimethylenemethane. Davidson indicated that his MELD program was capable of handling such a molecule. The ensuing collaboration with Davidson led to more than 20 coauthored 

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