Conference History

The first Dynamics of Molecular Collisions (DMC) Conference was held in 1965 in New Hampton, New Hampshire, chaired by Prof. John Fenn, who would win the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Two years later, the second DMC meeting was chaired Prof. John Polanyi, who would go on to win the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Prof. Dudley Herschbach and Prof. Y. T. Lee. Prof. Lee chaired the seventh DMC meeting in 1978, and beginning in 2007 each meeting has awarded two Herschbach Prizes, one for experiment and one for theory. The meeting is held every two years.

  1. 1965: New Hampton, New Hampshire (Chair: John Fenn, Yale University)
  2. 1968: Andover, New Hampshire (Chair: John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto)
  3. 1970: Oak Ridge, Tennessee (Chair: E. F. Green, Brown University)
  4. 1972: Plymouth, New Hampshire (Chair: Sheldon Datz, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
  5. 1974: Santa Cruz, California (Chair: James L. Kinsey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
  6. 1976: Plymouth, New Hampshire (Chair: Bruce E. Mahan, University of California, Berkeley)
  7. 1978: Pacific Grove, California (Chair:Yuan T. Lee, University of California, Berkeley)
  8. 1981: Plymouth, New Hampshire (Chair: R. James Cross, Yale University)
  9. 1983: Gull Lake, Minnesota (Chair: W. Ronald Gentry, University of Minnesota)
  10. 1985: Snowbird, Utah (Chair: Donald G. Truhlar , University of Minnesota)
  11. 1987: Wheeling, West Virginia (Chair: Paul Dagdigian, The Johns Hopkins University)
  12. 1989: Pacific Grove, California (Chair: William H. Miller, University of California, Berkeley)
  13. 1991: Lake George, New York (Chair: James M. Farrar, University of Rochester)
  14. 1993: Helen, Georgia (Chair: Joel M. Bowman, Emory University)
  15. 1995: Pacific Grove, California (Chair: Daniel Neumark, University of California, Berkeley)
  16. 1997: Gull Lake, Minnesota (Chair: George Schatz, Northwestern University)
  17. 1999: Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania (Chair: James Valentini, Columbia University)
  18. 2001: Copper Mountain, Colorado (Chair: James T. Muckerman, Brookhaven National Laboratory)
  19. 2003: Tahoe City, California (Chair: Laurie J. Butler, University of Chicago)
  20. 2005: Pacific Grove, California (Chair: Albert Wagner, Argonne National Laboratory)
  21. 2007: Sante Fe, New Mexico (Chair: David Chandler, Sandia National Laboratories)
  22. 2009: Snowbird, Utah (Chair: Anne McCoy, Ohio State University)
  23. 2011: Snowbird, Utah (Chair: David Nesbitt, JILA/University of Colorado)
  24. 2013: Granlibakken, California (Chair: Hua Guo, University of New Mexico)
  25. 2015: Pacific Grove, California (Chair: Arthur Suits, Wayne State University)
  26. 2017: Tahoe City, California (Chair: David Yarkony, Johns Hopkins University)
  27. 2019: Big Sky, Montana (Chair: Timothy Minton, Montana State University)
  28. 2023: Snowbird, Utah (Chair: Richard Dawes, Missouri University of Science & Technology)
  29. 2025: Snowbird, Utah (Chair: Amy Mullin, University of Maryland)

Herschbach Prizes

Inaugurated at the 21st DMC Conference chaired by Dave Chandler in 2007, these prizes recognize one experimentalist and one theorist for their outstanding contributions to the field of molecular dynamics.

As charged by Prof. Herschbach:

For bold and architectural work, inspiring and empowering. Such work addresses fundamental, challenging, frontier questions; brings forth new perspectives and capabilities; and typically excites evangelical fervor that recruits many followers.

Awardees

  • 2007: Richard N. Zare and William H. Miller
  • 2009: Daniel Neumark and Donald Truhlar
  • 2011: Yuan Lee and George Schatz
  • 2013: Giacinto Scoles, J. Peter Toennies and Joel Bowman
  • 2015: W. Carl Lineberger and Millard Alexander
  • 2017: Hanna Reisler and John Tully
  • 2019: Kopin Liu and David Yarkony
  • 2023: Marsha Lester and Hua Guo
  • 2025: David Chandler and Anne McCoy