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.