physics

Marsha I. Lester

Marsha I. Lester is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Marsha I. Lester rather than just read about it. In short: Marsha Isack Lester is an American physical chemist and the Edmund J. Kahn Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Key takeaways

Marsha I. Lester belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Marsha I. Lester to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Marsha I. Lester from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Marsha Isack Lester is an American physical chemist and the Edmund J. Kahn Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Lester uses both theoretical and experimental methods to study the physical chemistry of volatile organic compounds present in the Earth's atmosphere. Her work focuses on the hydroxyl radical and Criegee intermediates.

Education Lester graduated from William Allen High School in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1976, she received a B.A. from Douglass Residential College, an institution for women at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. In 1981, she earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in the laboratory of George W. Flynn. Her thesis was Vibrational Relaxation Dynamics in Bulk Gases and Supersonic Molecular Beams. From 1981 to 1982, she performed postdoctoral work as a National Science Foundation fellow at Bell Laboratories.

Career Lester was the chair of the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society. She also worked for American Chemical Society and was the chair of the Department of Energy's Council for Chemical and Biochemical Sciences. She is currently a professor at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where she was the first female chair of the department of chemistry from 2005 to 2009. She has been awareded the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Award in the Natural Sciences. She is the founder and currently chair of the Penn Forum for Women Faculty, a group formed to support female faculty at the university. Lester was editor of the Journal of Chemical Physics until 2019.

Research Lester's research group utilizes theoretical and experimental approaches to study chemical reactions. She focuses on modeling potential energy surfaces between reactive partners, with an emphasis on volatile organic compounds present in the Earth's atmosphere. She has published extensively on the interactions and reactions of the hydroxyl radical. Lester's group was the first to obtain an infrared spectrum of the hydrogen trioxide radical. Her lab currently works on modeling the stability of this radical and its conformers. Currently, her group focuses on photo-induced chemistry of Criegee intermediates, an intermediate in the alkene ozonolysis pathway. This pathway is a primary oxidation pathway for alkenes in the troposphere and generates atmospheric hydroxyl radicals. Her lab synthesizes Criegee intermediates in order to further study their chemical reactions using spectroscopy. Her lab also currently focuses on modeling and observing the collisional quenching of excited hydroxyl radicals. Quenching impacts the concentration of hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere, and is therefore of environmental interest. Her research group at the University of Pennsylvania was behind the development of open shell complexes.

Awards Herbert P. Broida Prize (2019) Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2016) Garvan-Olin Medal of the American Chemical Society (2014) Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2010) Fellow of American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2008) Bourke lectureship from Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2005) Guggenheim Fellowship (2002–03) Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1997) Fellow of the American Physical Society (1993) Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1987) Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar Award (1986)

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marsha I. Lester

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marsha I. Lester claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Marsha I. Lester before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Marsha I. Lester ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Marsha I. Lester

In research: Marsha I. Lester appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Marsha I. Lester in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Marsha I. Lester is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century births, 21st-century American physicists, 21st-century American women physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marsha I. Lester outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Marsha I. Lester in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Marsha I. Lester means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Marsha I. Lester out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marsha I. Lester in simple terms?

Marsha Isack Lester is an American physical chemist and the Edmund J. Kahn Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Why does Marsha I. Lester matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Marsha I. Lester?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Marsha I. Lester.