Wesley D. Allen was born on September 29, 1961 in Dickson, Tennessee, where he lived continuously until 1979. His primary and secondary education was received in public schools, and he began an association with Vanderbilt University while still in high school. His research in 1978 with Professor David J. Wilson at Vanderbilt on adsorbing colloid flotation of heavy metals, a water purification technique, earned him several national awards, e.g., a Westinghouse Science Talent Search Scholarship (final 40), and an Edison Centennial Scholarship. From 1979-83 he was a Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Honors Scholar at Vanderbilt University (full academic scholarship), receiving numerous additional academic honors during this period. His undergraduate thesis research comprised ab initio quantum chemical studies of the highly strained, antiaromatic molecule thiirene and its saturated analogue thiirane. In May 1983 he graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude with high honors in chemistry, and a double major in chemistry and physics.
In August of 1983 Mr. Allen entered graduate school in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held an NSF Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry from 1983-1986. At Berkeley he continued work in development and chemical applications of ab initio quantum chemistry. Dr. Allen completed requirements for the Ph.D. degree in the Department of Chemistry at Berkeley in September 1987. In 1986 Dr. Allen became associated with Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA and undertook several additional research projects in a Berkeley-Sandia collaboration. From July 1987 until June 1988 he continued worked at the Combustion Research Facility of Sandia National Laboratories as a postdoctoral research associate.
In July 1988 Dr. Allen joined the faculty at Stanford University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, where he directed Ph.D. research in theoretical chemistry and taught advanced physical chemistry and molecular quantum mechanics until 1994. Of the four Ph.D. students he supervised at Stanford, two are now Associate Professors in the U.S., one is an Associate Professor in Canada, and one is a research scientist at Sandia National Laboratories.
Dr. Allen is now an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia. Professor Allen moved to the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia in 1995 to accept a permanent state-funded research position. In 2004 this position was formalized as Senior Research Scientist, a professional rank classified as "approximately equivalent to a full professor faculty position." Dr. Allen also served as an Adjunct Professor and Graduate Faculty Member in the Department of Chemistry from 2005-2008. Finally, in 2008 he migrated to an attractive Associate Professor position in the Department of Chemistry, while still remaining a principal investigator in the Center for Computational Chemistry.
Professor Allen continues to pursue a wide range of research interests and international collaborations in the general of ab initio molecular quantum mechanics. In 2009 he was the recipient of the Creative Research Medal at the University of Georgia, in recognition of his development of multireference coupled cluster methods, as well as his collaborative work published in Nature on the elusive hydroxymethylene molecule and its remarkable tunneling dynamics. [See commentaries and news articles on this high-profile research in Nature (Vol. 453, p. 862), Chemistry World (July 2008, p. 23), and Angewandte Chemie (Vol. 47, p. 2).] Professor Allen's list of publications now numbers 95 research articles and book chapters, and the frequency of his invited lectures at universities and scientific conferences is very high. A complete list of publications and research interests can be found at www.ccc.uga.edu/wdallen.
Dr. Allen was raised in a Christian environment and made a personal decision for Christ in 1973. He was enthusiastically involved in campus ministries at Stanford University and has continued to promote Christian outreach and scholarship in various ways at the University of Georgia. He and his wife Anne are active members of Faith Presbyterian Church in Watkinsville, Georgia, where they have been involved in numerous ministeries.
Among other activities, Dr. Allen enjoys gardening, snow skiing, water skiing, table tennis, and classical piano. Weekend havens are provided by his three recreational properties totalling about 50 acres in counties surrounding Athens, Georgia. He and his wife are proud parents of their two Covenant children, Ashley Margaret Allen (b. September 22, 2001) and Andrew David Allen (b. July 9, 2003).