Hee-Seung Lee

Dr. Hee-Seung Lee earned B.S degree in Chemistry and M.S degree in Physical Chemistry from Seoul National University in Korea. He then came to US to pursue his Ph.D in theoretical chemistry at The Ohio State University, focusing on understanding the nature of large-amplitude vibrations in van der Waals complexes. After earning his Ph. D. degree in 2001, Dr. Lee worked at University of Chicago and New York University as a postdoctoral researcher, developing new ab initio molecular dynamics techniques based on real-space basis. After postdoctoral work, Dr. Lee joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UNCW in 2007 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012 and to Professor in 2016. His current research involves using density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study wide range of problems in chemistry, from small molecule reactions to protein-lipid interactions.

Education

Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry, The Ohio State University
M.S in Physical Chemistry, Seoul National University, Korea
B.S. in Chemistry, Seoul National University, Korea

Specialization in Teaching

Physical Chemistry (CHM220, CHM320, CHM521)
Computational Chemistry (CHM425, CHM525)

Research Interests

The main thrust of our research is to explore chemical and biological processes in complex condensed phase media via state-of-art computational methods, with particular emphases on applications relevant to nanoscience, catalysis, membrane, and sensors. The specific projects we are currently working on include:

(1) Molecular dynamics (MD) studies of lipid bilayers interacting with membrane active peptides and protein
(2) Density functional theory (DFT) investigation of Photochemical α-Alkylation of Cyclic Ketones
(3) Developing efficient preorganized ligands for the selective binding of Ln(III) and Ac(III) ions via DFT and machine learning (ML)

List of Publications: https://people.uncw.edu/leehs/MyPublication.html