Our topical group has not been active for many years, and we dedicated most of our efforts to developing a new plan to invigorate our section activity.  The key event we have been planning for this is “New York Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Conference (NYTaC3).”  The objective of this event is to establish a network of expert researchers and students from academia and industry and to help them share theirexperiences and ideas so as to nurture new collaborations and synergistic activities.  In addition, this will enhance awareness of the successes and the promises of theoretical and computational chemistry within the broad scientific community in greater New York area.  Below is a list of major steps we have accomplished this year.

(1)  Formation of organizing committee consisting of five members:

Seogjoo Jang, Associate Professor, Queens College, CUNY

Mihaela Bojin, Assistant Professor, Queensborough C. College, CUNY

David Reichman, Professor, Columbia University

Carlos Simmerling, Associate Professor, Stony Brook University

Mark Tuckerman, Associate Professor, New York University

(2)  Establishment of co-sponsorship with CUNY, Vice Chancellor Office, and planning of conference at the Graduate Center of CUNY on January 11th, 2010.

(3)  Development of conference website (http://chem.qc.cuny.edu/~nytac3/) and completion of registration process.  We have the following eight confirmed invited speakers: Bruce Berne (Columbia University), Joseph Dannenberg (Hunter College, CUNY), Shekhar Garde (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), David Green (Stony Brook University), Roger Loring (Cornell University), Marshall Newton (Brookhaven National Laboratory), Annabella Selloni (Princeton University), Yingkai Zhang (New York University).  In addition, we have about 20 applicants for contributing talks/posters.  The total number of participants registered for the event is 76.

(4)  Commitment for financial support from Dell, Healthcare and Life Sciences division.

As a preparation for the conference, we spent the 2009 budget $400 as a deposit for the catering service of the conference.

Chair: Seogjoo Jang, Queens College, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Kissena Blvd. 65-30, Flushing, NY 11367; (Tel) 718-997-4110; (Fax) 718-997-5531; email: seogjoo.jang@qc.cuny.edu

Vice Chair: Mihaela Bojin, Queensborough Community College, Department of Chemistry, Science Building, 222-05, 56th Avenue, Bayside, NY 11364; (Tel) (718) 281-5615; (Fax) 718-281-5078; email: mbojin@qcc.cuny.edu