Thais Scott
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Thais Scott uses quantum mechanics to understand how light-driven metal catalysts work at the electronic level. In her research, she employs multi-reference computational methods to determine reaction mechanisms and excited-state properties that experiments alone cannot capture. Before Bowdoin, she was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology and a Molecular Software Sciences Institute Fellow at the University of California, Irvine. She is also a contributor to open-source quantum chemistry software, including PySCF and OpenMolcas. Her research with Bowdoin student coauthors has been published in peer-reviewed journals like the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Her interest in computational chemistry was sparked as an undergraduate when she was introduced to academic research. That experience showed her that computation could uncover the electronic-level details governing how molecules move, react, and transform. She actively mentors undergraduate researchers at Bowdoin, involving them in projects ranging from simulating X-ray absorption spectra to implementing new electronic structure methods.
Education
- PhD, University of Chicago
- BS, University of Richmond