Chemical physicist and Yale alumnus John C. Tully has been named the Arthur T. Kemp Professor of Chemistry by vote of the Yale Corporation.
Tully, who came to Yale in 1996 after a 26-year career at Bell Laboratories, holds a joint appointment in the physics and applied physics departments. He specializes in research aimed at achieving a theoretical understanding, at the molecular level, of dynamical processes such as energy transfer and chemical reaction in condensed phase environments. He and his research team have developed novel theoretical and computation tools to use in the scientific study of such questions as the rates and pathways of energy flow in condensed phases and at surfaces, electron transfer reactions in liquids or at the liquid-solid interface, electron and proton transfer reactions in biological systems, and the competition between thermal and non-thermal reaction pathways in photochemistry.
Prior to coming to Yale, Tully was head of the physical chemistry research department at Bell Labs 1985-90 and was head of the materials chemistry research department there 1990-96. During his years there, he was awarded the AT&T Bell Laboratories Distinguished Technical Staff Award and the AT&T Bell Laboratories Affirmative Action Award.
Tully graduated from Yale in 1964 and earned his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1968. He was a National Science Foundation Fellow at the University of Chicago 1966-68 and at Yale 1968-69. He has been a visiting lecturer at Princeton and Harvard universities and the University of Colorado.
Tully has served on a number of scientific committees or panels for the American Chemical Society, the National Science Foundation, the American Physical Society and the American Vacuum Society. He also served on the advisory board of the Petroleum Research Fund and on the Chemistry Evaluation Panel of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. He has chaired several major scientific conferences and workshops. In addition, he has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Chemical Physics, Accounts of Chemical Research, Radiation Effects and Defects in Solids, Chemical Physics and Theoretical Chemistry Accounts.
The chemical physicist is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Tully's other honors include the American Chemical Society's Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry.