Emeritus Professor Ross McKenzie

Emeritus Professor

School of Mathematics and Physics
Faculty of Science

Overview

Dr Ross McKenzie's research interests are in the fields of: Condensed Matter Theory, Chemical Physics, and Quantum Many-Body Theory.

He received his PhD from Princeton University in 1989. His chief research projects are in the areas of:

Models for strongly correlated electron materials such as organic and cuprate superconductors

Magnetoresistance of layered metals including topological insulators

Excited states of organic molecules

Hydrogen bonding

Emergent phenomena in complex systems

The relationship between science and theology

Research Interests

  • Strongly Correlated Electron Models for Organic Superconductors
    Given a model Hamiltonian, which includes the interactions between the electrons, the challenge is to calculate the properties of its ground state and excited states and compare to the rich phase diagrams observed experimentally.
  • Theoretical chemical physics
    Diabatic state models for organic chromophores such as fluorescent proteins and for hydrogen bonding.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Princeton University
  • Bachelor (Honours) of Science (Advanced), Australian National University

Publications

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Grants

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Supervision

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Publications

Book Chapter

  • Bothma, Jacques, Gilmore, Joel and McKenzie, Ross H. (2008). Modelling quantum decoherence in biomolecules. Quantum Aspects of Life. (pp. 71-93) Imperial College Press. doi: 10.1142/9781848162556_0005

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Reimers, Jeffrey R., McKemmish, Laura K., McKenzie, Ross H. and Hush, Noel S. (2017). Diabatic models with transferrable parameters for generalized chemical reactions. 23rd International Symposium on the Jahn-Teller Effect: Vibronic Coupling and Electron-Phonon Interaction in Molecules and Crystals 2016, Tartu, Estonia, 27 August - 1 September 2016. Bristol, United Kingdom: Institute of Physics Publishing. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/833/1/012014

  • McKemmish, Laura K., Reimers, Jeffrey R., McKenzie, Ross H., Marks, Alan E. and Hush, Noel S. (2013). Electron transfer, biological phonon condensates, and the "Quantum Consciousness" hypothesis. 245th National Spring Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), New Orleans, LA United States, 7 - 11 April 2013. Washington, DC United States: American Chemical Society.

  • Hussey, N. E., Gordon-Moys, H., Kokalj, J. and McKenzie, R. H. (2013). Generic strange-metal behaviour of overdoped cuprates. 10th International Conference on Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity, M2S 2012, Washington, DC, 29 July - 3 August 2012. Bristol, United Kingdom: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/449/1/012004

  • McKemmish, Laura K., McKenzie, Ross H., Hush, Noel S. and Reimers, Jeffrey R. (2011). Electron-vibration quantum entanglement in chemical bonding. International Quantum Electronics Conference and Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Pacific Rim 2011, Sydney, NSW Australia, 28 August-1 September 2011.

  • Gilmore, J. and McKenzie, R. H. (2004). Quantum Decoherence of Electronic Excitations of a Biomolecule due to Solvent Interactions. 48th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, Baltimore, MD, 14-18 Feb 2004. Bethesda, MA: Biophysical Society.

  • Zhou, H. Q., Links, J. and McKenzie, R. H. (2003). Exact solution, scaling behaviour and quantum dynamics of a model of an atom-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company. doi: 10.1142/S0217979203023203

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Completed Supervision

Possible Research Projects

Note for students: The possible research projects listed on this page may not be comprehensive or up to date. Always feel free to contact the staff for more information, and also with your own research ideas.