Submitted by admin on
Professor Michael R. Shirts from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder is the winner of the 2020 CoMSEF Impact Award. He is cited “for increasing the utility, power, and reliability of molecular simulation as a chemical engineering tool through development and improvement of statistical mechanics methods and programs.” Prior to joining the faculty at Colorado in 2016, Michael was a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. Shirts received his PhD from Stanford University in 2005 with Vijay Pandey. For his post-doctoral research, he worked with Richard Friesner at Columbia University. Michael delivered a presentation describing his research during the CoMSEF Plenary Session at the 2020 AIChE Annual Meeting. The CoMSEF Impact Award is given annually to a CoMSEF member who is within 15 years of completion of their highest degree.