Downing hosts Lennard-Jones Centre's inaugural conference
In September, Downing College hosted the inaugural Lennard-Jones Centre Meeting over the course of four days.
The Lennard-Jones Centre provides a focus for interdisciplinary work in the physical sciences across the University of Cambridge, with active participants from chemistry, physics, materials, and engineering. Its core aim is to foster an inclusive environment from which new ideas and collaborations can emerge.
The Centre is named after Sir John Lennard-Jones, who held the first chair of theoretical chemistry in the United Kingdom, and pioneered computation.
The inaugural meeting highlighted contemporary frontiers for Theory and Molecular Simulation, including: energy landscapes, machine learning, electronic structure and quantum dynamics, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, and quantum computing.
110 people attended the conference, with many of the speakers and guests travelling from overseas.
Downing’s Senior Fellow, Professor David Wales, led the committee at the conference.
He said: “A multidisciplinary array of outstanding scientists gathered from all over the world to help us celebrate the Inaugural Meeting of the Lennard-Jones Centre in Cambridge.”
Find out more about the Lennard-Jones Centre on its website.
Photo: Nathan Pitt
Published 12 October 2023