Douglas J. Tobias
Chair, Department of Chemistry
Professor, Department of Chemistry
Investigator, Center for Complex and Active Materials – an NSF MRSEC
| Location: | 4118 Natural Sciences 1 | |
| Email: | dtobias@uci.edu | |
| Phone: | (949) 824-4295 | |
| Fax: | (949) 824-8571 | |
| Address: | Department of Chemistry University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-2025 |
Profile
Tobias is a computational chemist who uses computer simulation techniques based on classical and quantum mechanics to model a variety of phenomena in liquids, aqueous solutions, interfaces, polymers, and biomolecular assemblies. A substantial portion of his work is devoted to the development and implementation of novel simulation methodology and analysis tools. Tobias is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the American Physical Society. He is also the recipient of the Theoretical Chemistry Award from the Physical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society in 2014 and the Soft Matter and Biophysical Chemistry Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017. Tobias has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Physical Chemistry, the Journal of Chemical Physics, the Journal of General Physiology, and the Journal of Membrane Biology, as well as several committees advising the US Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Education
PhD, Carnegie Mellon University, 1991
Research
Tobias has extensive experience in the development of methodology (force fields, constant temperature and pressure molecular dynamics simulation algorithms, Monte Carlo simulations, and free energy calculations) for molecular simulations. His group applies a broad array of computational modeling techniques to a wide variety of problems. All of his research is carried out in close collaboration with experimental groups. His simulations provide atomically-detailed structural, dynamical, thermodynamic, and mechanistic predictions that inspire and complement the experimental efforts of his collaborators, and the experimental data obtained by his collaborators is crucial for validating the predictions of his modeling efforts. Tobias’s current research interests include: the environmental dependence of protein dynamics; protein-protein and protein-lipid interactions in aqueous solution and membranes; the biophysics of membranes, ion channel proteins, and structural proteins and water channels in the eye lens; and interfacial systems that are relevant to indoor air chemistry. His group has recently developed multi-scale simulation techniques that will be used to model self-assembly processes in the research activities of the MRSEC.