International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy

International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy
Name	International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy
Abbreviation	ISMS
Established	1925
Frequency	Annual
Discipline	Molecular spectroscopy
Venue	University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Country	United States

Contents

International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy is an annual scientific conference held at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign focusing on experimental and theoretical studies of molecular spectra. The symposium attracts researchers from institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and national laboratories including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Over its history the meeting has hosted figures associated with Niels Bohr, Linus Pauling, Gerhard Herzberg, Marie Curie, and Richard Feynman via invited lectures and legacy discussions.

History

The symposium traces origins to post-World War I developments in laboratory spectroscopy and physical chemistry with early connections to Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Arnold Sommerfeld, Isidor Isaac Rabi, and Walter Heitler. During the 1920s and 1930s, contributions from groups at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Munich, ETH Zurich, and University of Göttingen shaped agendas. Wartime and Cold War eras saw participation by scientists from Imperial College London, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago while debates over molecular structure echoed discussions linked to the Soviet Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Society. Postwar expansions incorporated advances from research centers including Bell Labs, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, CERN, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Organizing responsibility rests primarily with faculty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign supported by professional societies such as the American Chemical Society, Optical Society (OSA), American Physical Society, and international bodies like the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Funding and sponsorship have included industrial partners and agencies such as the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, European Research Council, Royal Society, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and private foundations associated with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Simons Foundation. Local hosts have coordinated with institutes such as the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

The symposium has been a venue for dissemination of advances in topics connected to spectroscopy methods developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Columbia Radiation Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and NIST. Discussions have influenced progress in molecular structure elucidation linked to Gerhard Herzberg’s work, quantum molecular dynamics related to Linus Pauling, and laser spectroscopy innovations tied to Theodore Harold Maiman and Arthur L. Schawlow. Cross-disciplinary impact reached communities at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. Applications reported at the meeting intersect with projects at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, European Space Agency, NOAA, and industrial research at DuPont, Boeing, and Siemens.

The symposium hosts named lectures and prizes that have honored scientists associated with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physics, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Dirac Medal, and the Copley Medal. Invited lecture series have honored figures such as Gerhard Herzberg Lecture-style memorials, and talks paralleling awards from the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Distinguished lecturers have been drawn from institutions including University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Harvard University.

Attendees regularly include faculty and students from institutions such as University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Yale University, Cornell University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, University of Tokyo, Peking University, and Tsinghua University. Representatives from national laboratories—Argonne, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Brookhaven National Laboratory—as well as corporate research labs from IBM Research, Microsoft Research, Google Research, and Intel often present. Delegates include undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, principal investigators, and visiting scientists affiliated with e.g. the Max Planck Society, CNRS, CSIC, and the Australian Research Council.

Proceedings and special issues associated with the symposium have been published by academic presses and journals including Journal of Chemical Physics, Physical Review A, Chemical Reviews, Accounts of Chemical Research, Nature Communications, Science Advances, and publishers like Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Oxford University Press. Collections of papers reflect contributions from laboratories at University of California, San Diego, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Imperial College London, and ETH Zurich and are indexed in databases connected to Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed.