| Teresa Head-Gordon | |
| Birth Name: | Teresa Lyn Gordon |
| Birth Place: | Ohio |
| Alma Mater: | Case Western Reserve University (BS) Carnegie Mellon University (PhD) |
| Workplaces: | Bell labs University of California, Berkeley Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| Fields: | Computational chemistry |
| Thesis Title: | Macroscopic and microscopic simulation methods as applied to biological macromolecules |
| Thesis Url: | https://search.proquest.com/docview/303689629 |
| Thesis Year: | 1989 |
| Awards: | Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2016) Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2018) |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Charles L. Brooks III |
| Spouse: | Martin Head-Gordon |
| Academic Advisors: | Frank Stillinger[1] |
Teresa Lyn Head-Gordon (née Teresa Lyn Gordon) is an American chemist and the Chancellor's Professor of Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.[2] She is also a faculty scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a fellow of both the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Head-Gordon was born in Akron, Ohio.[3] She completed her bachelor's degree in chemistry at Case Western Reserve University in 1983.[4] She worked as a waitress for a year before starting a PhD in 1984, and in 1989 she earned her doctorate degree in Theoretical Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Charles L. Brooks III.[5] [1] [6]
From 1990 to 1992 Head-Gordon worked as a postdoctoral member of technical staff at Bell Labs, studying protein folding and the perturbation theories of water with Frank Stillinger.[1] She joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1992, where she worked as a staff scientist until 2001. In 2001 Head-Gordon was awarded the IBM-SUR Award. That year she became a faculty member of Bioengineering at University of California, Berkeley. She was the 2005 Schlumberger Fellow at the University of Cambridge.[7] In 2011 she became a member of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department; in 2012 she joined the chemistry department at University of California, Berkeley., and joined the chemical sciences division as a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[8] In 2012 she was made the Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Pitzer Center for Theoretical Chemistry.[9]
Head-Gordon develops theoretical models that are used in chemical physics and biophysics.[10] The Head-Gordon group studies condensed phase systems ranging from biomolecular systems, molecular liquids, and complex interfaces.[11] [12] [13] [14] Her group develops software packages for molecular simulations.[15] [16] [17]
She is on the Board of Directors of the Molecular Sciences Software Institute.[18] She became co-director of CalSov in 2016. 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.[19] In 2018 she was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.[20]