Judith Herzfeld

Current Major Academic Interests:

1. Innovations in chemical education: “ConcepTests” and other active learning approaches; a material evolution narrative to communicate context and scope in general chemistry; integrating classical and statistical perspectives in introductory thermodynamics.
2. Implications of advances in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying human behavior for concepts of responsibility and theories of justice and punishment.

Former Major Academic Interests:

1. Development of sub-atomistic force fields based on semi-classical electrons for intuitive and efficient simulations of molecular structure and chemical reactions.
2. Spectroscopic studies of the structure and function of membrane proteins: emphasis on solid-state NMR studies of light-driven ion transport and the amyloid-like assembly of extreme dewetting surfaces in buoyancy organelles.
3. Spectroscopic studies of polymers implicated in pre-biotic chemistry: emphasis on the spontaneous polymerization of HCN and sugars.
4. Statistical mechanical studies of self-assembly and long-range order in crowded solutions of self-assembling protein filaments and micellar surfactants: emphasis on the osmotic and rheologic consequences of hemoglobin aggregation in sickle-cell disease, and the control of cytoskeletal organization and motility in active cells.
5. Cooperativity in proteins: emphasis on the control of function in hemoglobin and multimeric enzymes.