 | John C. Tully |
John C. Tully, newly designated as Sterling Professor of Chemistry, is a chemist and physicist who specializes in research aimed at a theoretical understanding, at the molecular level, of dynamical processes such as energy transfer and chemical reactions at surfaces, in condensed phases and in biological environments.
Tully holds a joint appointment in the physics and applied physics departments and serves as director of the Yale Center for Research on Interface Structures and Phenomena. He and his team have developed novel theoretical and computational tools to study a variety of challenging scientific questions, including the dynamics of gas-phase molecular collisions, the rates and pathways of energy flow in condensed phases and at surfaces, electron and proton transfer reactions in liquids and at the liquid-solid interface, and the competition between thermal and non-thermal reaction pathways in photochemistry.
Prior to joining the Yale faculty, Tully spent 26 years at Bell Labs, beginning as a member of the technical staff and later becoming head of the physical chemistry research department (1985-1990) and head of the materials chemistry research department (1990-1996). His work there included coordinating design for environment activities, evaluating the safety of cellular phones manufactured by AT&T and contributing to the holographic data storage effort, among other projects and responsibilities. He chaired Bell Labs' Summer Research Program for Minorities and Women in its Materials Science Division 1992-1996. He was awarded the AT&T Bell Laboratories Distinguished Technical Staff Award in 1982 and was honored with the company's Affirmative Action Award 10 years later.
Tully joined the Yale faculty in 1996 as the Arthur T. Kemp Professor of Chemistry. For the scientist, his Yale appointment marked a return to a place where his childhood interest in chemistry was further stimulated: He earned his B.S. at the University in 1964, and, after obtaining his Ph.D. in chemical physics at the University of Chicago, returned to Yale as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellow 1968-1969. He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow the previous year at the University of Colorado.
The Yale scientist has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, a visiting lecturer at Harvard University and the Maurice Shock Visiting Fellow at University College, Oxford University. He has served as chair of the American Chemical Society's Division of Physical Chemistry and Subdivision of Theoretical Chemistry, and of the American Physical Society's Division of Chemical Physics. He has also chaired several major scientific conferences.
Tully serves on the advisory board of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the advisory committee of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. He also serves on the Department of Energy's Council on Chemical Sciences and is a trustee of the Sheffield Scientific School.
In addition to his awards from Bell Labs, Tully received the American Chemical Society's Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry in 1995, its Madison Marshall Award in 1999 and its Award in Theoretical Chemistry in 2004. He was named a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in 2005. A special issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry featured a "John C. Tully Festschrift" in 2002.
Tully is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences.
T H I S
John C. Tully named Sterling Professor
of Chemistry
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