Henry F. Schaefer

Early life and education Schaefer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was raised in Syracuse, New York; Menlo Park, California; and East Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was one of three children of Henry F. Schaefer Jr. and Janice Christine Trost, both graduates of the University of Michigan. As a high school student at local Rapids High School, Schaefer met his wife, Karen Rasmussen, and worked as a factory worker for a steel company.

After high school, Schaefer attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he initially intended to specialize in chemical engineering. After deciding to switch to chemical physics, he graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in the subject in 1966. He published 12 articles in journals including Physical Review and Physical Review Letters prior to defending his dissertation. In 2004, he became Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, at UC Berkeley.

Schaefer became a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (IAQMS) in 1984. He was elected president of WATOC (World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists) in 1996, and held the position until 2005. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society as of 1977, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science as of 2002, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as of 2004.

As of January 2020, Schaefer was the author of more than 1,600 peer-reviewed publications. He was the editor of Molecular Physics for 11 years. He has directed 123 Ph.D. students, as well as many postdoctoral associates and visiting professors, now working at 42 academic institutions around the world.

Research Research within the Schaefer group involves the use of computational hardware and theoretical methods to solve problems in molecular quantum mechanics. His contributions to the field of quantum chemistry include a paper challenging, on theoretical grounds, the geometry of triplet methylene as assigned by Nobel Prize-winning experimentalist Gerhard Herzberg; the development of the Z-vector method simplifying certain calculations of correlated systems; and a wide body of work undertaken in his research group on the geometries, properties, and reactions of chemical systems using highly accurate ab initio quantum chemical techniques. Many of these papers have predicted, or forced a reinterpretation of, experimental results. "for the development of computational quantum chemistry into a reliable quantitative field of chemistry and for prolific exemplary calculations of broad chemical interest". The Pure Chemistry Award is given to the outstanding chemist in America under the age of 35. In 1983, he received the Leo Hendrik Baekeland award for the most distinguished North American chemist under the age of 40. In 1992, he was awarded the Centenary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, London, for being "the first theoretical chemist successfully to challenge the accepted conclusion of a distinguished experimental group for a polyatomic molecule, namely methylene."

In 2003, Schaefer received the American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry and the Ira Remsen Award of Johns Hopkins University. In 2004, a six-day conference was convened in Gyeongju, Korea on the “Theory and Applications of Computational Chemistry: A Celebration of 1000 Papers of Professor Henry F. Schaefer III.” Schaefer was honored with the $10,000 Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in 2005 by the University of Wisconsin's Theoretical Chemistry Institute.

In 2011, Schaefer received the Ide P. Trotter Prize from Texas A&M University. In 2012, he received a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, and on March 29, 2012, he received the $20,000 SURA Distinguished Scientist Award from the Southeastern Universities Research Association for fulfilling SURA's mission of fostering excellence in scientific research.

In 2013, Schaefer received the Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists. On March 18, 2014, Schaefer received the American Chemical Society Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry. Schaefer received the American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal on May 8, 2019.

Personal life Schaefer married Karen Rasmussen, a graduate of Wells College and Stanford University, on September 2, 1966.

Religion and science Schaefer is an active Protestant Christian educator who regularly speaks to university audiences, Christian groups and the public on science/faith issues. Schaefer wrote the forward to William A. Dembski's 1998 book Mere Creation: Science, Faith and Intelligent Design.

Schaefer is a proponent of intelligent design and a fellow of the Discovery Institute.

Published books