The National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry awarded $500,746 under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.049) to William Noid of The Pennsylvania State University from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2025. The award will support the development of predictive coarse-grained molecular models through rigorous theory and computational methods.
Specifically, Dr. Noid and his research group will derive and assess approaches to ensure coarse-grained models provide predictive accuracy and transferability for soft materials modeling, while also addressing limitations in thermodynamic property descriptions. They will analyze many-body potential of mean force to inform density-dependent pair potentials and temperature/composition-dependent local density potentials. Software implementing these methods will be contributed to the Bottom-Up Coarse-Graining open source package. In addition, an intergenerational science club will engage students and community members in scientific topics and discovery.