Brent K. Amberger

Brent Amberger received his B.A. in chemistry from Amherst College in 2008.  At Amherst, Brent spent time working with Professor David Hansen synthesizing molecularly imprinted polymers.  Later, he did his undergraduate thesis research with Professors Helen Leung and Mark Marshall, using microwave spectroscopy in the structural determination of small gas phase Van der Waals complexes.  At Wisconsin, Brent worked with Professor McMahon in the collaborative rotational spectroscopy sub-group with Brian Esselman and Professor R. Claude Woods.  He used a glow-discharge, millimeter-wave spectrometer to observe rotational transitions for small organic molecules.  Once rotational spectra for these compounds are known, they can be searched for in space using radio telescopes.  Brent owns many things, including a canoe, a cat, and a clownfish.

Brent graduated with a PhD in 2015 and is currently a Senior Researcher at Allergy Amulet in Lowell, MA.

Recent publication:

Amberger, B. K.; Esselman, B. J.; Stanton, J. F.; Woods, R. C.; McMahon, R. J. Precise Equilibrium Structure Determination of Hydrazoic Acid (HN₃) by Millimeter-wave Spectroscopy. J. Chem. Phys. 2015, 143, 104310.  View Article