Dr. Eran Rabani is a distinguished theoretical chemist renowned for his pioneering contributions to computational nanoscience and materials theory. He currently holds the Glenn T. Seaborg Chair in Physical Chemistry at the University of California Berkeley where he serves as a Professor of Chemistry and Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Born in Jerusalem in 1967 he earned his B.Sc. summa cum laude from the Hebrew University Special Program Amirim in 1991 and completed his Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry at the same institution in 1996. Following postdoctoral research at Columbia University where he worked with Bruce J. Berne he joined the faculty at Tel Aviv University in 1999 before transitioning to his current position at UC Berkeley in 2014. Throughout his career he has maintained a dual academic appointment while serving in significant leadership roles including Vice President for Research and Development at Tel Aviv University and Director of the Sackler Center for Computational Molecular and Materials Science at Tel Aviv University since 2015.
Professor Rabani has made seminal contributions to the development of stochastic orbital techniques that have dramatically reduced the computational complexity of calculating ground and excited state properties of nanomaterials. His groundbreaking work with Roi Baer and Daniel Neuhauser starting in 2012 on stochastic methods for electronic structure theory has enabled the calculation of GW self energies for systems with up to 10,000 electrons while maintaining linear scaling properties. His research has profoundly advanced our understanding of excited state dynamics in nanocrystals and quantum dots with important applications to photoluminescence exciton dynamics and charge transfer phenomena. As documented by his h index of 47 with over 230 publications and 8600 citations as of 2020 his theoretical frameworks have become essential tools for researchers studying nanoscale phenomena across chemistry and physics disciplines. The computational methodologies he has pioneered are now widely adopted for investigating structural electronic and optical properties of complex nanostructures that were previously computationally intractable.
Beyond his technical contributions Professor Rabani has significantly shaped the field through his editorial role as an associate editor for the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters since 2015 and his extensive mentorship of the next generation of scientists. His leadership extends to major institutional roles including Director of the Sackler Institute for Chemical Physics at Tel Aviv University from 2006 to 2010 and participation in numerous visiting professorships at prestigious institutions worldwide. He has received multiple distinguished honors including the Michael Bruno Memorial Award and the Israel Chemical Society Prize for Young Investigators recognizing his exceptional contributions to theoretical chemistry. Currently his research group continues to push the boundaries of computational nanoscience by developing real time approaches to nonequilibrium many body quantum dynamics and exploring novel applications of stochastic methods to complex material systems. His ongoing work promises to further bridge theoretical foundations with practical applications in nanotechnology positioning him at the forefront of computational molecular and materials science for years to come.
