Special Issue of Scientific Journal Dedicated to Bruce Garrett

(March 2016)

Bruce Garrett was honored with a Festschrift in Journal of Physical Chemistry B

Congratulations to Dr. Bruce Garrett at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on having the latest special issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry B dedicated in his honor. The issue, known as a Festschrift, contains 70 articles. Many of these articles focus on Garrett's research, while others are written as a tribute by his colleagues around the world.

A theoretical and computational chemist, Garrett developed approaches to determine the rates of molecular processes in gas and condensed phases, including the first consistent molecular theory of gas-to-particle nucleation. Nucleation is at the heart of the processes that create components of atmospheric aerosols, which affect our climate; research by Garrett and his collaborators has helped explain how. His work has earned him honors, including being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society.

In addition to his research, Garrett has spent much of his career on the management side of science. His mantra is to hire talented people, give them the resources they need, and get out of the way. The chance to help build PNNL's molecular science effort and computational chemistry capabilities lured him from Washington, DC, to Washington State and the national lab. Currently, he is the Chief Scientist for Chemical Sciences at PNNL, leading the strategic planning for fundamental chemical sciences. Also, he represents PNNL's research programs for a key sponsor -- the Department of Energy, Office of Science's Basic Energy Science Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division. 

The Festschrift was organized by three of Garrett's colleagues. Dr. Liem Dang at PNNL was one of the first hires Garrett made after coming to PNNL, and they have published together on topics of ion solvation and mass transport across aqueous-vapor interfaces. Interfacial process research by Dr. Akihiro Morita at the Tohoku University of Japan overlapped with Garrett's on interphase mass transport. Together, they wrote seminal papers on the need to understand the molecular and macroscopic scale processes controlling such transport. Garrett's postdoctoral position with Prof. Donald G. Truhlar at the University of Minnesota in the late 1970s was extremely productive and led to a valuable lifetime collaboration on reaction rate theory and its application. Together, the three scientists acquired articles, coordinated edits, and saw the issue to publication in honor of their colleague.