Scholes elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London

Gregory Scholes, the William S. Tod Professor of Chemistry, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. The Society’s fundamental purpose, reflected in its founding Charters of the 1660’s, is to recognize, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

This year, 51 eminent scientists from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society, as well as ten new Foreign Members and one Honorary Fellow for their exceptional contributions to science. Scholes will be formally welcomed into the Society at Admissions Day this July.

Scholes leads a research group that includes physical chemists, experimental physicists and theorists who are interested in understanding photo-initiated ultrafast processes in biological and chemical systems. The group uses femtosecond (10^-15 seconds) laser pulses to unravel details in energy and electron transfer processes in different systems by means of multidimensional electronic spectroscopy. Experimental efforts are supported by quantum chemical calculation and other theoretical approaches which help to infer the design principles behind the photo-physics involved.