Brooks Pate named MacArthur Fellow

The phone call came out of the blue for Brooks Pate, a professor of physical chemistry at U.Va. The voice on the other end came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, notifying Pate that he was one of 23 scholars nationwide to be named a MacAthur Fellow, an honor that comes with $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years.

Pate said he will put his windfall back into his work, which he said is at the forefront of a “new chemistry.” He is using lasers to redefine scientists’ understanding of molecular structure. Eventually, chemists will be able to take over the structure of molecules by manipulating their atoms, he predicted.

For more on Pate’s work, go to the “Also in the news today” link at http://www.virginia.edu/topnews