Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards the Humboldt Research Award to internationally recognized scientists for their academic achievements. In addition to a prize of €80,000, award winners are invited to conduct a joint research project with a collaboration partner at a German host research institution.
Expert in theoretical model development
Head-Gordon was awarded for her fundamental contributions to theoretical chemistry. The hallmark of her research is to unite quantum mechanics with advances in statistical mechanics and machine learning to connect to real-world experiments and applications in energy technology and medicine. A distinguishing feature of her work is in predicting experimental observables for systems ranging from associated liquids, intrinsically disordered proteins, enzymes, reactive interfaces and confinement, and catalysis. Her models also allow her to accurately describe the weirdest of all solvents: water - the matrix of life. Her computational methods are widely distributed in software packages and are used by researchers worldwide.
Research stay at RESOLV
During her intended stay in October 2025, Head-Gordon plans to conduct joint research on reactivity at interfaces with several researchers in RESOLV, including her primary host and experimentalist, Martina Havenith, and the theory groups of Dominik Marx (ab initio Molecular Dynamics) and Jörg Behler (Machine Learning). She will also connect with experimentalists studying protein condensation from liquid phase separation to (neurotoxic) fibril formation and developing catalysts for green chemistry.
About Teresa Head-Gordon
Teresa Head-Gordon obtained her PhD from Carnegie Mellon University with Charles Brooks and was a Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories. She joined Berkeley in 1992 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004 and Full Professor in 2007. She currently holds the Chancellor’s Professor Chair in the departments of Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley.
She is a member of the Pitzer Center for Theoretical Chemistry and on the Board of Directors of the Molecular Sciences Software Institute. In 2016, she was elected a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for her contributions to the computational methodologies for macromolecular assemblies. In 2018, she was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.