2023 West Coast Theoretical Chemistry Meeting

Date: Saturday, May 6, 2023

About the Meeting

The West Coast Theoretical Chemistry Meeting at UC Davis aims to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty, and industry scientists for a 1-day meeting to discuss and present their research across all areas of theoretical chemistry in the form of talks and posters. This is the third meeting of an annual series of meetings that has previously taken place at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. This meeting was originally scheduled for May 2, 2020 but was postponed due to COVID-19.

Meeting Location

Talks will be held in Walker Hall, Room 1310. Room 1320 is available as a break room and will be the location for meals and coffee breaks. The poster session will be held in Student Community Center, Meeting Room D.

Breakfast, coffee breaks, and lunch are included with registration. Dinner is on your own.

Meeting Schedule

Breakfast (8:00 – 8:50 AM), 1320 Walker Hall (Poster presenters should use this time to get set up)

Morning Session 1 (8:50 – 10:40 AM), 1310 Walker Hall
Session Chair: Alexei Stuchebrukhov

8:50 - 9:00 : Opening remarks

9:00 – 9:40 : Ken Houk, UC Los Angeles
Allowed and Forbidden Adventures with Pericyclic Reactions

9:40 – 10:00 : Antonios Alvertis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Phonon-induced exciton localization in molecular crystals from first principles

10:00 – 10:40 : Anna Krylov, University of Southern California
Molecules and x-rays: Advances in experimental techniques drive theoretical developments

Coffee Break (10:40 – 11:10 AM), 1320 Walker Hall (Poster presenters should use this time to get set up)

Morning Session 2 (11:10 – 12:10 PM), 1310 Walker Hall
Session Chair: Tom Markland

11:10 – 11:50 : Robert Lucchese, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Resonances and Time Delays in Molecular Photoemission

11:50 – 12:10 : Vinícius Cruzeiro, Stanford University
1b₁ Splitting in the X-ray Emission Spectrum of Liquid Water is Dominated by Ultrafast Dissociation

Lunch & Poster Session (12:10 – 2:40 PM)
Lunch served in 1320 Walker Hall
Poster session in Meeting Room D, Student Community Center

Afternoon Session 1 (2:40 – 4:00 PM), 1310 Walker Hall
Session Chair: Nicolas Sawaya

2:40 – 3:20 : Marina Guenza, University of Oregon
Bridging Theory and Applications: Advancements in Coarse-Graining for Macromolecular Simulations

3:20 – 3:40 : Huanchen Zhai, California Institute of Technology
Multireference protonation energetics of a dimeric model of nitrogenase iron-sulfur clusters

3:40 – 4:00 : Henrik Larsson, University of California, Merced
Tensor network states for simulating fluxional molecular systems

Coffee Break (4:00 – 4:30 PM), 1320 Walker Hall (Poster presenters should use this time to put posters away)

Afternoon Session 2 (4:30 – 6:00 PM), 1310 Walker Hall
Session Chair: Anthony Dutoi

4:30 – 5:10 : Hrant Hratchian, UC Merced
Modeling electron detachment spectroscopy using self-consistent field methods

5:10 – 5:50 : Martin Head-Gordon, UC Berkeley
In search of numbers and insight: Recent advances in energy decomposition analysis.

5:50 – 6:00 : Closing remarks

Information for Travelers

If you are flying in, the closest airport is SMF (about 20 miles' drive). Bay Area airports are also within driving distance (OAK is about 65 miles' drive).

The conference venue and two recommended parking lots are shown on this Parking Map. There is no need to pay for parking on weekends.

If you are planning to stay the night, the following hotels are recommended as they are close to the conference venue.

Hyatt Place UC Davis (Close ~10-12 minute walk to the event space)
Aggie Inn (Close ~10 minute walk to the event space)
Hilton Garden Inn

Information for Poster Presenters

The recommended poster size is 48" x 36". The maximum poster width is 48", as this will allow two posters to fit side-by-side on a 96" wide board. The maximum poster height is 48".

Please refer to the document linked below for your poster number.

WCTC-2023 Poster Assignments