Scott Anderson
I am a physical chemist who started in gas-phase spectroscopy and reaction dynamics (B.A. from Rice University with Phil Brooks, Ph.D. from Berkeley with Y.T. Lee, postdoc with Dick Zare at Stanford). I joined the chemistry faculty at SUNY Stony Brook in 1983, studying gas-phase reactions of state-selected ions and of metal/metalloid clusters, then moved to University of Utah in 1995, where I am currently a Distinguished Professor and Henry Eyring Presidential Endowed Chair in Chemistry.
As part of the move, I switched my research from gas-phase to surface chemistry which I knew practically nothing about, and AVS became important to me as a venue to learn about everything surface- and UHV-related, and to meet colleagues and make friends. I hope that being on the executive committee will give me opportunities to help other newbies in the surface science field.
I currently focus on two areas of nanoparticle surface chemistry: 1. Catalysis and electrocatalysis by size-selected clusters deposited on surfaces in UHV. 2. Surface chemistry of individual nanoparticles, using a new single-particle trapping method. We focus on understanding cluster size effects on catalysis, the effects of nanoparticle structure on surface chemistry, and development of the single-particle trapping method as a tool for chemistry at ultra-high temperatures (>3000 K), where conventional surface science is difficult.