Brent Westbrook
bwestbro.com
Welcome!
My name is Brent Westbrook, and I am currently a Staff Scientist at the Open Force Field Initiative working on the parameterization of force fields. Previously, I did my PhD in chemistry at the University of Mississippi with Ryan Fortenberry, where I worked on automating anharmonic vibrational spectra calculations and reparameterizing semi-empirical methods. I am exclusively a computational chemist, so I spend more of my time with computers than with chemistry. As a result, I occasionally have interesting things to share about computers here or on my YouTube channel.
I was also a general chemistry Supplemental Instruction leader for four semesters and wrote many worksheets during that time, so I also have them accessible here.
Recent Publications
(24) A. G. Watrous, B. R. Westbrook, and R. C. Fortenberry. "On the detectability of interstellar diaminomethane ((NH2)2CH2) ." Mon. Not. Royal Astron. Soc., 2024. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad3938.
(23) B. R. Westbrook, and R. C. Fortenberry. "High throughput anharmonic vibrational and rotational spectral computations." Ann. Rep. Comput. Chem., 2023. DOI: 10.1016/bs.arcc.2023.10.005.
(22) B. R. Westbrook, and R. C. Fortenberry. "Taming Semi-Empirical Methods for PAHs and Vibrational Spectra." J. Molec. Spectrosc., 2023. DOI: 10.1016/j.jms.2023.111846.