Northeast Regional Molecular Modeling Workshops

During 1995-1998, Prof. Lahti was one of the instructors in the Northeast Regional Molecular Modeling Workshops (NERMMW) sponsored by the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education (NSF-DUE). This program was administered by Dr. Beatrice Botch of the UMass-Amherst Chemistry Resource Center. The workshop trained 10-15 college faculty per year from the northeastern USA in standard computer modeling methodologies. The goal of the NERMMs was to help educators learn enough about basic computational modeling to incorporate it rationally into undergraduate and graduate level education. Each workshop lasted for four intensive daylong sessions, included a banquet that allows meetings with vendors who sell computational software and hardware, and concluded six months after the workshop with a one-day symposium aimed at sharing strategies on getting computational chemistry into the classroom. As of 1998, over 50 faculty were been trained. A number have already created their own curricula for computational chemistry aided learning, including WWW sites for dissemination of the techniques and exercises.The NERMMW is no longer operational, but materials develped at the workshop are available by request from Paul M. Lahti.