Marsha Isack Lester is an American physical chemist. She is currently the Edmund J. Kahn Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

. Lester uses both theoretical and experimental methods to study the physical chemistry of volatile organic compounds present in the Earth's atmosphere. Her current work focuses on the

hydroxyl radical The hydroxyl radical is the diatomic molecule . The hydroxyl radical is very stable as a dilute gas, but it decays very rapidly in the condensed phase. It is pervasive in some situations. Most notably the hydroxyl radicals are produced from the ...

and

Criegee intermediate A Criegee intermediate (also called a Criegee zwitterion or Criegee biradical) is a carbonyl oxide with two charge centres. These chemicals may react with sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the earth's atmosphere, and are implicated in the ...

Education

Lester graduated with a B.A. from

Douglass Residential College Douglass Residential College, is an undergraduate, non degree granting higher education program of Rutgers University-New Brunswick for women. It succeeded the liberal arts degree-granting Douglass College after it was merged with the other und ...

, an institution for women within

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and wa ...

, in 1976. She then earned her Ph.D. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in 1981 in the laboratory of George Flynn. Her thesis was entitled ''Vibrational Relaxation Dynamics in Bulk Gases and Supersonic Molecular Beams''. She carried out postdoctoral work as a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

Fellow at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

from 1981 to 1982.

Career

Currently she works as a professor at

Marsha I. Lester
Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania. from which she has received the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Award in the Natural Sciences. Lester was the first female chair of the department of chemistry, a position she held from 2005 to 2009. She was a founder, and is currently chair, of the Penn Forum for Women Faculty, a group formed to support female faculty at the university. Lester is also well known as the editor (until 2019) of the ''

Journal of Chemical Physics ''The Journal of Chemical Physics'' is a scientific journal published by the American Institute of Physics that carries research papers on chemical physics.American Physical Society. She also worked for

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

. Later on, she was the chair of the Department of Energy's Council for Chemical and Biochemical Sciences.

Research

Lester's research group utilizes theoretical and experimental approaches to study chemical reactions. She focuses on modeling potential energy surfaces between reactive partners, with an emphasis on

volatile organic compound Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds that have a high vapour pressure at room temperature. High vapor pressure correlates with a low boiling point, which relates to the number of the sample's molecules in the surrounding air, a ...

s present in the Earth's atmosphere. She has published extensively on the interactions and reactions of the hydroxyl radical. Lester's group was the first to obtain an

infrared spectrum Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

of the hydrogen trioxide radical. Her lab currently works on modeling the stability of this radical and its conformers. Currently, her group focuses on photo-induced chemistry of Criegee intermediates, an intermediate in the

alkene In organic chemistry, an alkene is a hydrocarbon containing a carbon–carbon double bond. Alkene is often used as synonym of olefin, that is, any hydrocarbon containing one or more double bonds.H. Stephen Stoker (2015): General, Organic, an ...

ozonolysis In organic chemistry, ozonolysis is an organic reaction where the unsaturated bonds of alkenes (), alkynes (), or azo compounds () are cleaved with ozone (). Alkenes and alkynes form organic compounds in which the multiple carbon–carbon bon ...

pathway. This pathway is a primary oxidation pathway for alkenes in the

troposphere The troposphere is the first and lowest layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, and contains 75% of the total mass of the planetary atmosphere, 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From ...

and generates atmospheric hydroxyl radicals. Her lab synthesizes Criegee intermediates in order to further study their chemical reactions using

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter ...

. Her lab also currently focuses on modeling and observing the collisional quenching of excited hydroxyl radicals. Quenching impacts the concentration of hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere, and is therefore of environmental interest. Her research group at the University of Pennsylvania was behind the development of

open shell In atomic physics and quantum chemistry, the electron configuration is the distribution of electrons of an atom or molecule (or other physical structure) in atomic or molecular orbitals. For example, the electron configuration of the neon atom ...

complexes.

Awards

Herbert P. Broida Prize The Herbert P. Broida Award is awarded every two years by the American Physical Society for outstanding work for experimental advances in the field of atomic and molecular spectroscopy or chemical physics. The prize was established in 1979 and is ...

(2019) *Member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

(2016) * Garvan-Olin Medal of the American Chemical Society (2014) *Fellow of the

(2010) *Fellow of

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and o ...

(2008) * Bourke lectureship from

Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, ...

Division of the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

(2005) *

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

(2002–03) *

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

(1997) *

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its moti ...

(1993) *

Alfred P. Sloan Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. ( ; May 23, 1875February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. Sloan, first as a senior executive and la ...

Research Fellowship (1987) * Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar Award (1986)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lester, Marsha I. Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century births Living people 21st-century American physicists Columbia University alumni American women physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Chemical Society The Journal of Chemical Physics editors William Allen High School alumni Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor 21st-century American women scientists