On February 20, 2023, APATCC (the Asia-Pacific Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists) awarded Professor Ma Haibo (Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science, Shandong University) the 2023 Pople Medal.
Since its inception in 2004, APATCC has set up two annual medals in the field of theoretical and computational chemistry. The Fukui Medal is given to extraordinary theoretical chemists in the Asia-Pacific region in the field of theoretical and computational chemistry, and the Pople Medal is awarded to younger scientists at the age of 45 or less who have stood out because of their pioneering contributions to this field. As of 2023, a total of five Chinese scientists have been awarded the Pople Medal, and they are Liu Wenjian (2006), Li Shuhua (2008), Gao Yiqin (2016), Liu Jian (2019), and Huang Xuhui (2021). Chinese winners of the Fukui Medal are Wu Yundong (2014), Liu Wenjian (2017), Fang Weihai (2020), and Zhang Donghui (2022).
Prof. Ma Haibo has been devoted to the development of electronic structures and quantum dynamics methods for strong-correlation systems. He established the ultra-precision DMRG2sCI-MRCI/PT2 method by combining density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), selective configuration interaction, and multi-reference configuration interaction/perturbation theory, which aims to accurately calculate static and dynamic electronic correlations in large active space. He also developed stochastic single point (SS-TD-DMRG) and hibernate mapping (HM-TD-DMRG) time-dependent DMRG methods to realize efficient quantum dynamics simulation of strong-correlation systems in complex environments. Kylin, a multi-reference quantum chemistry software with fully independent intellectual property rights was developed by him. Prof. Ma Haibo was awarded the Tang Aoqing Youth Award for Theoretical Chemistry by the Chinese Chemical Society in 2018. The following year, a research he participated in won the First Prize of Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education.
(Reprinted from //www.qitcs.qd.sdu.edu.cn/info/1003/1542.htm)
