Imre Gyula Csizmadia (October 30, 1932 – July 13, 2022) was a Canadian Hungarian chemist, university professor, external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Early life and education
Career
Imre Gyula Csizmadia Imre Gyula Csizmadia was born in Budapest on October 30, 1932. His early education was strongly influenced by Márton Sain, a teacher at Lónyai Street Grammar School in Budapest, and Károly Benkő, a chemistry teacher from Szeghalom who had fled the Royal Hungarian Franz Joseph University in Cluj.[1] During his university years at the Technical University of Budapest, he was particularly influenced by András Messmer, who taught theoretical chemistry at the university. Csizmadia graduated as a chemical engineer in 1956 and subsequently continued his studies in physical organic chemistry at the University of British Columbia in Canada, where he earned an M.Sc. in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1962. During his postdoctoral period, Csizmadia gained experience in quantum chemistry computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at the University Computer Centre in England as a NATO Science Fellow from 1962 to 1964. In 1964, he was appointed Professor at the University of Toronto, where he has remained actively involved in both research and teaching ever since.[2] In 2002, as a Szent-Györgyi Scholarship holder, Csizmadia spent a short period at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) before continuing at the University of Szeged in Hungary. He contributed to the research and teaching activities of the computational chemistry group led by Béla Viskolcz in the Department of Chemical Informatics at the University of Szeged. He continued this work as an emeritus professor until 2015. At his initiative, a summer school was established through which students from the University of Szeged and the University of Toronto could learn and apply computational chemistry methods. Between 2015 and 2022, he also contributed to the development of computational chemistry research at the University of Miskolc. Over the course of his career, Csizmadia has served as a visiting professor in numerous countries, including Canada, Argentina, Japan, China, England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Hungary. He has also received honorary doctorates from Eötvös Loránd University (1988), the National University of San Luis in Argentina (2007), and Semmelweis University (2022). His main scientific activities have focused on developing practical theoretical methods for drug design, an area in which he has involved even second-year university students. [3] He has also advocated more effective, personalized, and inspirational approaches to teaching, particularly inquiry-based learning and teaching, as alternatives to conventional information-based approaches centered primarily on the transmission of knowledge.
Scientific Contributions and Career Together with Malcolm C. Harrison, Jules Moskowitz, and Brian Sutcliffe, Csizmadia carried out the mathematical design and software development of the POLYATOM program package.[1] POLYATOM was the first software package for ab initio calculations using Gaussian orbitals and was developed within John C. Slater's Solid State and Molecular Theory Group. In 1968, Csizmadia was the first to perform LCAO-MO-SCF (ab initio) calculations on a formamide molecule using atom-centered, non-contracted Gaussian-type functions (GTFs). His calculations determined the ionization potential and dipole moment of the molecule in its ground state.[2] He later investigated the theoretical basis of the stereochemical consequences of electron pairs and polar bonds occupying adjacent positions, a phenomenon associated with the Edward–Lemieux effect, also known as the anomeric effect.[3] Csizmadia also experimentally investigated the mechanism of the Wolff rearrangement, demonstrating that the gas-phase Wolff rearrangement of α-keto carbons proceeds through an oxy-oxygen intermediate state.[4] He subsequently demonstrated the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of the oxirene molecule formed during this mechanism using semiempirical calculations based on the Hückel method and ab initio calculations.[5] In 1976, using the model compound PH₅, he investigated Berry pseudorotation (BPR) and turnstile rotation (TR), mechanisms that describe intramolecular ligand exchange in phosphoranes. He showed that the activation energy for the BPR mechanism was relatively low, at 1.95 kcal/mol, whereas that for the TR mechanism was considerably higher, at 10.5 kcal/mol.[6] In 1978, together with M. R. Peterson, he performed the first ab initio calculations and constructed a potential-energy hypersurface to investigate the conformational behaviour of n-butane.[7] In 1985, Csizmadia founded the Journal of Molecular Structure: THEOCHEM, a journal devoted to computational chemistry, and served as its editor until 2003. Since 2011, the journal has been published under the title Computational and Theoretical Chemistry and appears biweekly.[8] He served as the first President of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC) from 1987 to 1990.[9] In 1987, he organized the first WATOC conference, held in Budapest from August 12 to 18. He subsequently organized the second WATOC conference in Toronto in 1990. Since its establishment, WATOC has grown into one of the major international conferences in theoretical and computational chemistry, held every three years. His research interests were primarily in theoretical organic chemistry, with particular emphasis on the topology of potential-energy hypersurfaces and the conformational behaviour of oligopeptides. He also investigated molecular changes associated with oxidative stress and the protonation states of molecules in their ground and excited states. Until the end of his life, Csizmadia remained an active researcher, author, and editor. He authored or co-authored approximately 550 scientific publications and 14 books, while his work accumulated more than 13,000 citations according to Web of Knowledge. However, he regarded his students as his most important achievement. This philosophy was influenced by his mentor, John C. Slater, with whom he worked from 1962 to 1964. Slater similarly placed great importance on educating and training the next generation of researchers rather than focusing solely on building his own scientific career.
Interesting facts His name appears in the acknowledgement of Cube (1997 film), a cult film of the late 1990s.
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