BAER’s Dr. Partha P Bera Organizes International Astrochemistry Symposium in Washington, D.C.

BAER Institute’s Dr. Partha Bera, along with Alexander Tielens of Leiden University, in the Netherlands, recently hosted an international symposium at the American Chemical Society’s fall national meeting at Washington DC.  The symposium, held August 20 to 24, 2017, covered, over nine sessions, a wide breadth of subjects related to astrochemistry, that included organic inventory of the gas phase, the chemistry of the dark clouds, interplay of gas and dust, hot-cores and corinos, proto-planetary disks, high-resolution spectroscopy, the diffuse interstellar bands, the chemistry of atmospheres of stars and planets, and present and future opportunities such as ALMA, SOFIA, and JWST.  The symposium was very highly attended with average session attendance of over 70 people.  Each session began with an overview talk by an eminent scholar in the field, followed by talks on observation, experiment, quantum chemistry calculations, and modeling.  A total of 66 (including invited and contributed talks) talks and 12 posters were presented at the symposium by participants from all over the world.  Drs. Bera and Tielens also organized a special total solar eclipse viewing and discussion session, which were both very well attended by the attendees of the conference.