# Peter Schwerdtfeger

Peter Schwerdtfeger (born 1 September 1955) is a German scientist. He holds a chair in theoretical chemistry at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, serves as director of the Centre for Theoretical Chemistry and Physics, is the head of the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, and is a former president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

## Academic career

Schwerdtfeger took his first degree in chemical engineering at Aalen University in 1976, after finishing a degree as chemical-technical assistant at the Institute Dr. Flad in Stuttgart in 1973. He studied chemistry, physics and mathematics at Stuttgart University where he received his PhD in theoretical chemistry in 1986. He received a Feodor-Lynen fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to join the chemistry department and later the School of Engineering at University of Auckland in 1987. After a two years research fellowship at the Research School of Chemistry (Australian National University), he returned to Auckland University in 1991 for a lectureship in chemistry. He received his habilitation and venia legendi (Privatdozent) in 1995 from the Philipps University of Marburg. He held a personal chair in physical chemistry for five years until moving to Massey University Albany in 2004, where he established the Centre for Theoretical Chemistry and Physics. He became a founding member of the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study in 2007. In 2007 he received the Royal Society Australasian Chemistry Lectureship, and was the Källen Lecturer in Physics at Lund University (Sweden) in 2015. From 2017-2018 he was member of the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He has published 350 papers in international journals. He was awarded eight consecutive Marsden awards by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
One of Schwedtfeger's notable doctoral students is Patricia Hunt, professor at Victoria University of Wellington.

## Fellowships and awards

* 2001 James Cook Fellowship
* 2011 Fukui Medal
* 2012 Fellow of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science.
* 2014 Royal Society of New Zealand's Rutherford Medal.
* 2019 Dan Walls Medal

## Selected publications

* Schwerdtfeger, P.; Heath, G.A.; Dolg, M.; Bennett, M.A. (1992). "Low Valencies and Periodic Trends in Heavy Element Chemistry. A Theoretical Study of Relativistic and Correlation Effects in Group 13 and Period 6 Hydrides and Fluorides". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 114: 7518. doi:10.1021/ja00045a027.
* Schwerdtfeger, P. (2003). "Gold Goes Nano – From Small Clusters to Low-Dimensional Assemblies". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 42 (17): 1892–5. doi:10.1002/anie.200201610. PMID 12730967.
* Hermann, A.; Schmidt, W.G.; Schwerdtfeger, P. (2008). "Resolving the optical spectrum of water: Coordination and electrostatic effects". Physical Review Letters. 100 (20): 207403. Bibcode:2008PhRvL.100t7403H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.207403. PMID 18518578.
* Schwerdtfeger, P. (2011). "The Pseudopotential Approximation in Electronic Structure Theory". ChemPhysChem. 2 (17): 3143–55. doi:10.1002/cphc.201100387. PMID 21809427.
* Hauser, A.; Schwerdtfeger, P. (2012). "Nanoporous graphene membranes for efficient 3He/4He separation". Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 3 (2): 209. doi:10.1021/jz201504k.
* Calvo, F.; Pahl, E.; Wormit, M.; Schwerdtfeger, P. (2013). "Evidence for low temperature melting of mercury owing to relativity". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 52 (29): 7583–5. doi:10.1002/anie.201302742. PMID 23780699.
* Schwerdtfeger, P.; Wirz, L.; Avery, J. (2015). "The Topology of Fullerenes". Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Molecular Science. 5 (1): 96–145. doi:10.1002/wcms.1207. PMC 4313690. PMID 25678935.
* Pašteka, L.F.; Eliav, E.; Borschevsky, A.; Kaldor, U.; Schwerdtfeger, P. (2017). "Relativistic coupled cluster calculations with variational quantum electrodynamics resolve the discrepancy between experiment and theory concerning the electron affinity and ionization potential of gold". Physical Review Letters. 118 (2): 023002. Bibcode:2017PhRvL.118b3002P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.023002. PMID 28128629.
* Jerabek, P.; Schuetrumpf, B.; Schwerdtfeger, P.; Nazarewicz, W. (2018). "Electron and Nucleon Localization Functions in Superheavy Elements". Physical Review Letters. 120 (5): 053001. arXiv:1707.08710. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.053001. PMID 29481184.
* Giuliani, S. A.; Matheson, Z.; Nazarewicz, W.; Olsen, E.; Reinhard, P.-G.; Sadhukhan, J.; Schuetrumpf, B.; Schunck, N.; Schwerdtfeger, P. (2019). "Oganesson and beyond". Reviews of Modern Physics. 91: 011001. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.91.011001.