Robert J Buszek, PhD

I am a theoretical/computational chemist. While planning on going to pharmacy school, I took physical chemistry my junior year and fell in love with it. Having the support of the outstanding faculty at Albion College I decided to pursue my PhD in physical chemistry. I hope to pass this on in teaching physics and physical chemistry.

I was fortunate enough to spend 13+ years as a researcher at the Air Force Research Lab at Edwards AFB, CA investigating the synthesis, performance and stability of novel propellant materials including fuels, oxidizers and polymers utilizing various computational methods including density functional theory (DFT), and molecular dynamics (MD) methods among others. Prior to this I studied the catalytic effects of water and acids on the oxidation of atmospheric reservoirs via ab initio methods and gas phase kinetic theories at Purdue University.

My current research interests lie in understanding the chemical mechanisms involved in the formation complex organic molecules (COMs) and prebiotic species in space. The interstellar medium (ISM) is an extremely hostile environment exhibiting incredibly low temperatures and pressures, with a significant amount of high energy radiation. However, advancements in observational techniques as well as the launching of the James Web Telescope has led to the observation of up to nearly 250 molecules. This chemistry lies in the radiation of ice mantles that reside on dust grains within dense molecular clouds in the ISM as these ice mantles provide a dense molecular environment for chemistry to take place. I am particularly interested in the role that water can play in these reaction mechanisms.