Dr. Joel H. Parks
Rowland Senior Fellow
Rowland Institute at Harvard
Harvard University
100 Edwin H. Land Blvd.
Cambridge, MA 02142
Tel: 617-497-4653
Fax: 617-497-4627
Email: parks@rowland.harvard.edu

Education

• 1959 Physics, B. S. - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 1969 Physics, Ph. D. - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research Positions

• 2002 - Present, Rowland Senior Fellow, Harvard University
• 1981 - 2002, Senior Staff Scientist and Advisory Council Member, The Rowland Institute for Science
• 1976 - 1981, Principal Research Scientist, Avco Everett Research Laboratory
• 1969 - 1976, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
• 1964 - 1968, Research Assistant, Optical and Infrared Laser Group, MIT
• 1961 - 1964, Research Scientist, Polaroid Corporation
• 1959 - 1961, Associate Engineer, Boeing Airplane Company

Professional Collaborations

• 2005-2006 Prof. Ignacio L. Garzon, National University of Mexico
• 2005-2006 Prof. David van der Spoel, Uppsala University
• 2005-2006 Prof. Uzi Landman, Georgia Institute of Technology

Memberships

• American Physical Society
• American Chemical Society

Research Biography

    Dr. Joel H. Parks received his doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute for Technology in Physics. His graduate work included the measurement of collisional energy transfer processes in rare gases; the measurement of the nonlinear interaction of laser fields with Zeeman tuned atomic levels; and high resolution spectroscopy of ultraviolet stimulated emission in molecular nitrogen. Several theoretical studies were also performed to describe the radiative bandwidth of superflourescent emission and the nonlinear behavior of atom-field interactions in a lasing medium.

    Dr. Parks was an Assistant Professor in the Physics and Electrical Engineering Departments at the University of Southern California. His research included gas and liquid phase energy transfer in polyatomic molecules; laser induced electronic processes leading to dielectric surface damage; the development of new surface wave techniques to measure ultra-weak infrared surface absorption coefficients in alkali halide materials; and the theory of high gain laser amplifiers for broad band optical fields.

    Dr. Parks' primary research effort as a Principal Research Scientist at the Avco Everett Research Laboratory was the search for candidate atomic and molecular species which offered the possibility of new visible laser transitions. Previous research at this laboratory led to the successful discovery of rare gas halide lasers including KrF, ArF, XeCl. Dr. Parks extended this research to the demonstration of mercury monohalide lasers HgCl and HgBr. He was involved in experiments in laser induced chemical processes.

    Dr. Parks was one of the initial research staff members of the Rowland Institute for Science, founded by Dr. Edwin H. Land in 1981. Dr. Parks established a laboratory to investigate excited states of atoms and molecules on atomically clean surfaces. A principle research accomplishment was measurement of the evolution of collective mode resonances in small sodium clusters as the number of atoms increases. He has also studied the collisional physics of cluster ions stored in rf quadrupole traps. Taking advantage of long storage times, these techniques were applied to study the growth of clusters by single atom associative collisions and to characterize the dynamics of the charge distribution on multi-charged C₆₀ ions.

    More recently these trapped ion methods have been extended to investigate electron diffraction of trapped atomic and molecular clusters. This technique has applied to observe the dependence of symmetry transitions in cluster structures on cluster size and temperature. (CsI)_nCs⁺ was observed to exhibit an fcc to bcc transition at n=32, a closed atomic shell for the bcc symmetry. Currently, these methods are being used to investigate structural transitions in metal clusters. These include studies of local fivefold to global icosahedral symmetry changes in Ag_n⁺ over the size range n=36-55, and local fivefold to global fcc symmetry changes in Au_n^- over the size range n=11-22. This work is presently concentrating on measurement of gold cluster anion structures which have been identified to have remarkable catalytic reactivity at low temperatures.

    Dr. Parks has also originated techniques to measure fluorescence processes of trapped ions. These new methods are being applied to measure the conformational changes of trapped biomolecules induced by temperature. The dynamics of conformation fluctuations has been studied for unsolvated Trp-cage protein as a function of temperature. Measurement of the dynamics of polyeptide chains, peptides characterizing secondary and tertiary structure, and drug-peptide species exhibiting non-covalent interactions are ongoing.