Welcome!

Picture of me

My name is Brent Westbrook, and I am currently a software engineer at Astral, where I work on the Ruff linter. Before that, I was 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. In addition to blogging occasionally here, I post even more rarely 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

(26) B. R. Westbrook, and R. C. Fortenberry. "Anharmonic rotational and vibrational spectroscopic constants of NH2CH2OH." Vib. Spec., 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.vibspec.2024.103690.

(25) A. R. Flint, B. R. Westbrook, and R. C. Fortenberry. "Theoretical Rotational and Vibrational Spectra Data for the Hypermagnesium Oxide Species Mg2O and Mg2O+." ChemPhysChem, 2024. DOI: 10.1002/cphc.202400479.

(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.

Recent Blog Posts

2025-06-15 - A CSS Makeover

2024-09-02 - Book Review: Rust Atomics and Locks

2024-07-14 - Book Review: Crafting Interpreters

Old Worksheets

Spring 2018 - CHEM 2320 (Gen. Chem. 2)

Fall 2018 - CHEM 2320 (Gen. Chem. 2)

Spring 2019 - CHEM 2327 (Quant.)

Miscellaneous Resources

AstroCheminar Presentation (YouTube)

Quartic Force Field Presentation (PDF)

Gaussian 09 Tutorial (PDF)

Gaussian 09 Tutorial (YouTube)

Linear and Non-Linear Optimization (PDF)