Today I was really excited to read inter­view with friend of mine Alán Aspuru-Guzik at Scep­ti­cal Chymist (Nature Blogs). Alán is an assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, and works at the inter­face of the­o­ret­i­cal chem­istry, quan­tum and GPU com­put­ing. His research is also focused on method devel­op­ment includ­ing but not lim­ited to quan­tim monte carlo, TDDFT and quan­tum dynamics.

Q: What made you want to be a chemist?

A: My junior high school teacher in Mex­ico was an inspi­ra­tion. He was a bio­chemist with a pas­sion for the inner work­ings of pro­teins and enzymes. I later had the oppor­tu­nity of rep­re­sent­ing Mex­ico at the Inter­na­tional Chem­istry Olympiad held in Oslo, Nor­way, in 1994. By then, I had a a tough choice between study­ing com­puter sci­ence or chem­istry. The incli­na­tion for com­puter sci­ence, how­ever, never faded away. For my Ph.D., I car­ried out large-scale com­put­ing using quan­tum Monte Carlo. Dur­ing my post­doc years, I began work­ing at the inter­face between quan­tum com­pu­ta­tion and chem­istry, and this is still one of my cur­rent research top­ics as an inde­pen­dent faculty.

Q: If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be — and why?

A: If I were not a sci­en­tist, I can imag­ine many other pos­si­ble alter egos. On dreamy days, I see myself as a film maker, doing inde­pen­dent film, or as a (very) pro­gres­sive politician.

Read full inter­view at Scep­ti­cal Chymist.

The Scep­ti­cal Chymist is a blog by the edi­tors of Nature and the Research jour­nals — and a forum for read­ers, authors and the entire chem­i­cal com­mu­nity. Authors dis­cuss what’s new and excit­ing in chem­istry and chem­i­cal biol­ogy, be it in Nature jour­nals or elsewhere.

27th April, 2009