skip to content

Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry

 
 
CONTACT
  • Department of Chemistry
  • Lensfield Road
  • Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
  • Tel.: +44(1223)336377
  • email: df246@cam.ac.uk 

2023 Edition of "Understanding Molecular Simulation"

Research

My research focuses on numerical simulations of many-body systems, with special emphasis on problems relating to the prediction of stability and kinetics in complex self-assembly in soft and biological materials.

I develop novel algorithms when I need them.

Main aspects of research

  • Developing novel Monte Carlo techniques to predict the thermodynamic stability of complex structures (e.g. DNA-coated colloids (fig 1) ).
  • Exploring novel dynamical simulation techniques to predict the rate at which novel structures form from a meta-stable parent phase (e.g. crystal nucleation – fig 2).
  • Quantifying the disorder in granular packings.
  • Exploring the microscopic origins of phoretic transport.
  • Exploring the role of multivalent binding in biological and colloidal materials.

Daan Frenkel (1948) -  Emeritus Professor of Chemistry

EDUCATION

1966 - 1977 University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, NL
Degrees: Masters degree Physical Chemistry, 1972 
PhD Physical Chemistry, 1977 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2015-2018 :  Director of Research, U Cambridge
2011-2015: Head of the Department of Chemistry, U Cambridge
2007-2015: 1968 Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, U Cambridge
1977 - 1980 UCLA Los Angeles, CA, USA Postdoctoral Research Fellow Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
1980 - 1981 Shell Research Amsterdam, NL
Research Scientist Department of Separation Technology.
1981 - 1986 Utrecht University Utrecht, NL Universitair docent/hoofddocent (Lecturer/Reader) Department of Physics.
1987-2013 FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics Amsterdam, NL
Group Leader
Started computational-physics research line.
1987-2007 Utrecht University Utrecht, NL
Professor (part time)
Associated with the Van ‘t Hoff laboratory for Colloid Science.
1998-2013 University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, NL
Professor (part time)
Associated with the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Science.

 

HONOURS , AWARDS AND NAMED LECTURES

 

2022: Sam Edwards Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics
2022: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Lorentz Prize
2021: McBain Memorial Lecture, NCL, Pune (India)
2020: Liquid Matter Prize, European Physical Society
2020: Sheikh Saud lecture, Temple University, Philadelphia Durrer Prize, ETH Zürich
2019: Ben May Lecture, Weizmann Institute, Israel. , USA.
2020: G.N. Ramachandran Memorial Lecture, S.N. Bose Center, Kolkata2019: Staudinger-
2019: NTNU Lars Onsager Medal and Visiting Professorship
2019: Bragg Lecture, University College London
2018: President's International Fellowship Initiative Award (Chinese Academy of Sciences) 
2018: C.V. Raman Memorial Lecture 2018, IISc, Bangalore, India. 
2018: ICTS-Infosys Chandrasekhar Lectures, Bangalore, India
2017: Cohen Lectures, Northwestern University, Evanston , IL, USA
2016: Elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge
2016: Sir Eric Rideal Lecture of the SCI/RSC.
2016: Elected Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)
2016: Boltzmann Medal (IUPAP)  
2015: Bakhuis-Roozeboom medal - Netherlands Academy of Sciences
2013: Member of the Academia Europaea
2013: Hinshelwood Lectures, Oxford University
2012: Robert Scott Lecture, University of Californian at Los Angeles.
2012: Elected Associate Fellow of TWAS – The World Academy of Sciences
2012: Spiers Memorial Award Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry
2011: Joseph E Hirschfelder Prize, U. Wisconsin at Madison (USA)
2011: Concurrent Professor, Nanjing University (China)
2011: Robert S. Mulliken Memorial Lecture, U. Chicago (USA)
2011: Fritz London Memorial Lecture, Duke University (USA)
2010: Pitzer Lecturer, U.C. Berkeley (USA) 
2010: Soft Matter & Biophysical Chemistry Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry
2010: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).
2008: Elected Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
2008: Awarded ERC Advanced grant.
2007: Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics of the American Physical Society
2007: Laughlin Lecturer, Department of Chemistry, Cornell University (USA)
2007: Honorary Doctorate, University of Edinburgh (UK)
2007: Berni Alder-CECAM prize of the European Physical Society.
2007: Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award
2006: Kivelson Memorial Lecture, Dept. of Chem. and Biochem., UCLA, (USA)
2006: Wohl Memorial Lecture, Dept. of Chem. Eng, U. Delaware (USA)
2006: Elected Foreign Member Royal Society (London).
2005: Honorary Professor, Beijing University of Chemical Technology (CN)
2004: Rothschild Professor, University of Cambridge (UK)
2002: Elected Member of the “Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschap-pen” (NL)
2002: First UCLA Distinguished Lecturer in Engineering (USA)
2000: NWO Spinoza Award (NL)
1999: Bourke lecturer & medalist, Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).
1999: James Franck Institute Distinguished Lecturer. U. Chicago (USA)
1999: Eli Burstein Lecture in Materials Science, U. Pennsylvania (USA)
1998: Elected member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (NL)
1998: Regents lecturer. University of California at Los Angeles (USA). 
1997: Lennard-Jones lecture of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). 
1997: Physica lecture and Prize of the Dutch Physical Society. 
1984: Visiting lecturer at the K.U. Leuven (Belgium) 
1975: Shell graduate-student travel award
1969: Unilever Undergraduate Chemistry award.

 

Daan Frenkel has published over 500 papers.  His research focuses on molecular simulations in the area of soft and biological matter.
Together with Berend Smit, he wrote "Understanding Molecular Simulation". This book has been translated into Chinese and Russian.  

Publications

Self-replication of Aβ42 aggregates occurs on small and isolated fibril sites
S Curk, J Krausser, G Meisl, D Frenkel, S Linse, TCT Michaels, TPJ Knowles, A Šarić
– Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
(2024)
121,
e2220075121
Self-replication of Aβ42 aggregates occurs on small and isolated fibril sites
S Curk, J Krausser, G Meisl, D Frenkel, S Linse, T Michaels, T Knowles, A Šarić
(2023)
Numerical Test of the Onsager Relations in a Driven System
X Wang, J Dobnikar, D Frenkel
– Physical Review Letters
(2022)
129,
238002
Simulations of DNA-Origami Self-Assembly Reveal Design-Dependent Nucleation Barriers.
A Cumberworth, D Frenkel, A Reinhardt
– Nano Lett
(2022)
22,
6916
Temperature protocols to guide selective self-assembly of competing structures.
A Bupathy, D Frenkel, S Sastry
– Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
(2022)
119,
e2119315119
Special issue in honour of Michael L. Klein FRS
R Evans, D Frenkel, A Galindo, G Jackson
– Molecular Physics
(2021)
119,
e1999639
Thermodynamics and kinetics of crystallization in deeply supercooled Stillinger-Weber silicon
Y Goswami, VV Vasisht, D Frenkel, PG Debenedetti, S Sastry
– The Journal of chemical physics
(2021)
155,
194502
Challenges in modelling diffusiophoretic transport
S Ramírez-Hinestrosa, D Frenkel
– European Physical Journal B
(2021)
94,
199
Modelling aggregates of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide on gold surfaces using dissipative particle dynamics simulations
Y Liu, J Wei, D Frenkel, A Widmer-Cooper
– Molecular Simulation
(2021)
48,
872
Estimation of the equilibrium free energy for glasses using the Jarzynski equality.
HA Vinutha, D Frenkel
– Journal of Chemical Physics
(2021)
154,
231101
  • 1 of 57
  • >

Research Group

Research Interest Group

Telephone number

01223 336376

Email address

df246@cam.ac.uk