Merz Research Group

Kenneth M. Merz, Jr.
Professor of Chemistry
Quantum Theory Project
PO Box 118435
Gainesville, FL 32611

Office: 2328 New Physics Building
Phone: 352-392-6973
e-mail:merz@qtp.ufl.edu

Curriculum Vitae(html)(pdf)
Publications(html)(pdf)
Lectures(html)(pdf)

Graduate Students

	Ning Liao has his B.S. degree in Chemistry from Nankai University, China and then got his M.S. from Peking University, China. His current research interests are development of Poisson-Boltzman based Self Consistent Reaction Field methods for studying solvation and charge transfer effects. Find out more
	Bryan Op't Holt has a B.S. in Chemistry from University of South Alabama, His research interests are Ab initio, DFT, and MD study of copper metallochaperones responsible for copper homeostasis within cells. Of particular interest are Cu(I) binding and transport mechanisms in the SOD1:hCCS and Atx1:Menkes Protein interfaces. Find out more
	Kenneth Ayers has a bachelors degree in Chemistry from University of Delaware. His research interest is in developing an NDDO-DFT method that will use the NDDO formalism, a gaussian basis and DFT to be used on biological systems. Find out more
	Martin Peters has a bachelors degree in Computational Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and then got his M.S from Penn State University. His research interests are the development and applications of semiempirical methods to protein folding, drug design and QSAR Find out more
	Seth Hayik has a bachelors degree in Biochemistry from Philadelphia University. His research interests are using combined QM/MM methods to determine binding affinities of various protein/ligand systems. Find out more.
	Duane Williams has a bachelors degree in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from Randolph-Macon College. His research interests are in analyzing the applicability of semiempirical methods for protein systems. Find out more.

Post Docs

	Dr. Bing Wang has a PhD in Computational Chemistry from the University of Arkansas. His research interersts are the development of a fast approach to accurately calculate NMR chemical shifts using the "divide-and-conquer" method at the semiemprical MNDO level, allowing for accurate calculations for systems up to thousands of atoms. Find out more
	Dr. Kevin Riley received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Penn State University.
	Dr. Guanglei Cui received a Ph.D. in chemistry from SUNY at Stony Brook. His research interests are the computational studies of protein-ligand interactions and enzymatic reactions using molecular mechanic and quantum mechanic types of approaches. Find out more...
	Dr. Xue Li received a Ph.D. from SUNY Buffalo. She will be investigating incorporating the effects of X-Ray restraints into calculations within DivCon and AMBER. Find out more...

Alums

Tami Marrone (1993) - Pfizer
Scott Legrand (1993) - Battlesphere
Karen Rossi (1994) - Bristol-Myers-Squibb
Tim Glennon (1995) - Accelrys
Rob Stanton (1995) - Pfizer
Scott Best (1997) - Teaching at Conestoga High School
Sam Toba (1998) - Accelrys
Jim Vincent (1998) - National Cancer Institute, NIH
Arjan van der Vaart (2001) - Postdoc with Martin Karplus, Harvard
Laura van Zant (2001) - Staff Scientist at a Biotech Company
Ed Brothers (2003) - Postdoc with Gustavo Scuseria, Rice University
Kaushik Raha (2005) - Postdoc with Brian Shoichet, UCSF
Andrew Wollacott (2005) - Postdoc with David Baker, UW
Lance Westerhoff (2005) - QuantumBio Inc.

Previous Members

Hwangseo Park (Post Doc) - Assistant Professor, Seoul National University
Dimas Suarez (Post Doc) - Professor, University of Oviedo, Spain
Natalia Diaz (Visiting Scientist) - Professor, Univeristy of Oviedo, Spain
Valentin Gogonea (Post Doc) - Assistant Professor, Cleveland State University
Steve Dixon (Post Doc) - Schrodinger Inc.
Dave Hartsough (Post Doc) - Arqule
Ailan Cheng (Post Doc) - Accelrys
Komath Damodaran (Post Doc) - Senior Research Associate, Scripps Research Institute
Habibah Wahab (Visiting Scientist) - Lecturer, Singapore
Gauthan Nadig (Visiting Scientist) - Metahelix Lifesciences
Yajun Zheng (Post Doc) - Dupont
Lucia Banci (Visiting Scientist) - Professor, University of Florence
Z. Peng (Post Doc) - Pfizer
Giorgio Colombo (Visiting Scientist) - Researcher, ICRM, Italy
Xiaodong Zhang (Post Doc) - Tom Bruce, UCSB
Ning Yu (Post Doc) - Post Doc at GSK
Guillermina Estiu (Post Doc) - University of Notre Dame