Principal Investigator
Orkid Coskuner-Weber, Ph.D.

Orkid Coskuner-Weber studied Chemistry with minors in Toxicology and Polymer Chemistry at the Universitaet zu Koeln in Germany. She got interested in quantum mechanics and classical mechanics and their applications in life when she was 14 yr old and therefore started her Ph.D. studies in the group of Prof. Dr. Ulrich K. Deiters. She implemented a new software package for molecular simulations, developed a new potential function for liquid water and studied the nature of hydrophobic in
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teractions during her Ph.D. studies. She also visited UMIST in Manchester, England and University of Amsterdam for visiting the lectures and participating into face to face practice hours in the implementations of molecular simulation techniques and methods provided by Prof. Dr. Mike Allen, Dr. Dominic Tildesley, Prof. Dr. Daan Frenkel, and Prof. Dr. Berend Smit in 2001 and 2002. After completing her Ph.D. studies within 3 years with summa cum laude, Dr. Coskuner joined the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University and worked with Prof. Dr. Mike Paulaitis and Prof. Dr. Denis Wirtz. In 2005, Dr. Coskuner joined Stanford University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a postdoctoral scientist and worked with Dr. Carlos A. Gonzalez, Dr. Anne Chaka, Dr. Thomas Allison, Prof. Dr. Emily Jarvis, Dr. Jeffrey Hudgens, Dr. Allan Laufer, Dr. Denis Bergeron on various projects that involved quantum mechanics with dynamics and the implementation of classical mechanical methods at ab initio level with dynamics. From 2007 to 2009, Dr. Coskuner also gained valuable experience in statistical mechanics area development and implementation from her research activities with Prof. Dr. Toshiko Ichiye and Dr. Bernard Brooks. She also taught a graduate level course at George Mason University in the evenings while she performed research at NIST during the days. After working with chemists, physicists, and engineers in different countries and gaining the necessary experience in all three levels of physics, Dr. Coskuner joined the Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at San Antonio as an assistant professor in the Fall of 2009. Dr. Coskuner is also associated with the Neurosciences Institute at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is the mother of Melissa S. Weber (born 2007) and is married to Dr. Thomas P. Weber, and is interested in the chemistry of oil painting in her free time.