Jack Sabin, Scientist and Friend

Jens Oddershede is Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at University of Southern Denmark and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at University of Florida. He graduated from Aarhus University in 1970 with a degree in chemistry and physics with a thesis in quantum chemistry directed by Professor Jan Linderberg. He was awarded the dr. scient. degree from Aarhus University in 1978 and Dr. Science h.c. from University of Florida in 2014. Oddershede was a postdoctoral fellow 1971-73 at University of Utah (Frank E. Harris) and came to University of Southern Denmark in 1977 where he has been since. He was Dean of Science 1992-2001 and University President 2001-2014 at the same university. His research interest focusses on theoretical molecular physics and quantum chemistry, in particular the development and applications of methods (polarization propagator methods) for direct calculation of electronic spectra and properties related to spectra. Also the calculation of stopping powers and shell corrections as well as mean excitation energies and other dipole oscillator strength sum rules are among the current research interests.

Erkki Brändas was born in Tampere, Finland in July1940 and was, as a Finnish war child, transported to Sweden in February 1942, finally adopted by his Swedish parents and given Swedish citizenship in 1947. He received his FL (PhD) in 1969 and Doctor of Philosophy (habilitation) in 1972, both at Uppsala University. Except for guest professorships in USA, Germany, Israel, he spent his professional career in Uppsala employed as Assistant- Associate- and Full Professor from 1975 until retirement in 2007. In addition to serving as chairman of the department of Quantum Chemistry, he was appointed Executive Director of the Uppsala Graduate School Advanced Instrumentation and Measurement supervising the doctoral education of 35 PhD’s from 1997-2007. He has served on various international scientific and editorial boards, e.g. Wiley, Elsevier and Springer including the service as Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, Series Editor of the Advances in Quantum Chemistry. He is the current President of the International Society for Theoretical Chemical Physics, since 15 years, chairing a variety of international congresses and other numerous meetings, schools and workshops. He has published over 260 articles and edited more than 50 books on fundamental theoretical chemical physics from research on atoms, molecules and solid-state physics to complex enough systems in biology – from the microscopic realm to the cosmological rank.