Roberto Car (born 3 January 1947 in Trieste) is an Italian physicist and the Ralph W. Dornte *31 Professor in Chemistry at Princeton University, where he is also a faculty member in the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials.[1] He conducts research on the simulation of molecular dynamics phenomena.
He is a professor in the Theory Department, of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society.[2]
He is a member of the Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation.[3]
Awards
In 2009 he shared the Dirac Medal with Michele Parrinello for their development of the ab initio molecular dynamics simulation method. The method combines the quantum mechanical density functional theory for calculation of electronic structure with methods of molecular dynamics for the simulation of classical ("Newtonian") atomic movements. They call their procedure ab initio molecular dynamics ; it is also well known as the Car–Parrinello method. The procedure was jointly developed by both men in 1985,[4] when they were in Trieste. Their procedure has found various applications in solid-state physics, biochemistry, chemical physics, and materials science.
