Andrew Owen

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5903-1651

Andrew received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of North Dakota in 2015. During his time there, he worked under Professor Irina Smoliakova on an organic synthesis project related to renewable fuels as part of an REU program. After that, he worked under Professor Jerome Delhommelle on a project to characterize hydrogen sulfide phase properties using molecular dynamics simulations. Finally, he worked under Professor Mark Hofmann to carry out structure determinations of various antimony oxides using ab initio calculations.

In the McMahon group, Andrew applies computational methods and his understanding of quantum mechanics to support current and future research projects. This includes explaining the observed diastereoselectivity in the synthesis of cyanobutadienes, predicting the stability of the carbon condensation products of highly unsaturated carbon chains, and implementing a priori predictions of vibration-rotation coupling for rotational spectroscopy. Recently his focus has been on applying improved theoretical methods to the structure determinations of hydrazoic acid and pyridazine, and analyzing the dependence of the structures on the isotopologues used to obtain them.

Andrew spends a lot of his free time reading books, playing board games with his wife, and trying to find the missing puzzle pieces that her cat stole.

Andrew received his PhD in 2022 and is currently a research computing facilitator at the UW-Madison Center for High Throughput Computing.

Recent Publication:

Owen, A. N.; Esselman, B. J.; Woods, R. C.; McMahon, R. J.  Carbon Condensation via [4+2] Cycloaddition of Highly Unsaturated Carbon Chains. J. Phys. Chem. A, 2023, 127, 4277-4290.  View Article