As part of the Computing[MTU] Showcase, April 4-6, 2022, a two-day workshop with Irene Metz will take place Tuesday, April 5, 9-11 am, and Wednesday, April 6, 1:45-3:00 pm. Both workshops will take place in the Memorial Union, Ballrooms B and C.
Learn how computational chemistry can be used to help first-year chemistry students learn how to identify correct electron configurations, calculate ionization energies, and understand the energy differences in electron orbitals using open-source software. Wavefunction plots can also be obtained and examined, allowing students to derive relationships between quantum numbers and nodes for themselves.
Dr. Irene Metz (they/them, she/her) is a 2007 Chemistry graduate from Michigan Technological University, who then took an unconventional route through graduate school. They completed their MS at the University of Iowa in 2009, only to leave to start teaching at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa. In 2016, they returned to the University of Iowa to complete their PhD, while continuing to work full-time at Hawkeye with the goal of bringing computational chemistry into the first-year curriculum. Irene graduated with their PhD in Chemistry in 2021. They believe computational components are vital to the chemistry curriculum to help prepare students for future careers.