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2025
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Chemistry
USA
2026

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Best Scientists

D-Index
196
Citations
189842
World Ranking
335
National Ranking
224

Chemistry

D-Index
201
Citations
201588
World Ranking
15
National Ranking
9

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Chemistry in United States Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Best Scientists Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Chemistry in United States Leader Award
  • 2010 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 1990 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • 1982 - Fellow of American Physical Society (APS)

Overview

William A. Goddard is affiliated with the California Institute of Technology in the United States. Their research spans across the fields of Engineering and Materials Science, with significant contributions in subfields including Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Organic Chemistry, and Molecular Biology.

Their work often centers on topics such as Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion, CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts, Advanced Battery Technologies and Materials, Fuel Cells and Related Materials, and Receptor Mechanisms and Signaling.

Frequent coauthors in their publications include Charles B. Musgrave, Moon Young Yang, Qi An, Soonho Kwon, and Mohsen Tamtaji. These collaborations reflect ongoing partnerships in advancing research in related scientific areas.

William A. Goddard has published extensively in several key venues, most notably:

  • Journal of the American Chemical Society (38 publications)
  • The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (19 publications)
  • ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (16 publications)
  • ACS Catalysis (12 publications)
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (11 publications)

Some of their recent papers include:

  • Highly active and stable stepped Cu surface for enhanced electrochemical CO2 reduction to C2H4, 2020, Nature Catalysis
  • Stabilizing Highly Active Ru Sites by Suppressing Lattice Oxygen Participation in Acidic Water Oxidation, 2021, Journal of the American Chemical Society
  • Strain enhances the activity of molecular electrocatalysts via carbon nanotube supports, 2023, Nature Catalysis
  • Oxygen evolution reaction over catalytic single-site Co in a well-defined brookite TiO2 nanorod surface, 2020, Nature Catalysis
  • Effects of Surface Roughness on the Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 over Cu, 2020, ACS Energy Letters

William A. Goddard's awards include fellowships from several scientific societies: the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1990), and the American Physical Society (APS) (1982).

Best Publications

  • UFF, a full periodic table force field for molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics simulations

    A. K. Rappe;C. J. Casewit;K. S. Colwell;W. A. Goddard

  • DREIDING: A generic force field for molecular simulations

    Stephen L. Mayo;Barry D. Olafson;William A. Goddard

  • ReaxFF: A Reactive Force Field for Hydrocarbons

    Adri C. T. van Duin;Siddharth Dasgupta;François Lorant;William A. Goddard

  • Charge equilibration for molecular dynamics simulations

    Anthony K. Rappe;William A. Goddard

  • Starburst Dendrimers: Molecular-Level Control of Size, Shape, Surface Chemistry, Topology, and Flexibility from Atoms to Macroscopic Matter

    Donald A. Tomalia;Donald A. Tomalia;Adel M. Naylor;William A. Goddard

  • Silicon nanowires as efficient thermoelectric materials

    Akram I Boukai;Yuri Bunimovich;Jamil Tahir-Kheli;Jen-Kan Yu

  • Advances in molecular quantum chemistry contained in the Q-Chem 4 program package

    Yihan Shao;Zhengting Gan;Evgeny Epifanovsky;Andrew T. B. Gilbert

  • ReaxFF Reactive Force Field for Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Hydrocarbon Oxidation

    Kimberly Chenoweth;Adri C. T. van Duin;William A. Goddard

  • Catalysis Research of Relevance to Carbon Management: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

    Hironori Arakawa;Michele Aresta;John N. Armor;Mark A. Barteau

  • Thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes

    Jianwei Che;Tahir Çagin;William A Goddard

  • Ultrafine jagged platinum nanowires enable ultrahigh mass activity for the oxygen reduction reaction

    Mufan Li;Zipeng Zhao;Tao Cheng;Alessandro Fortunelli

  • Accurate First Principles Calculation of Molecular Charge Distributions and Solvation Energies from Ab Initio Quantum Mechanics and Continuum Dielectric Theory

    David J. Tannor;Bryan Marten;Robert Murphy;Richard A. Friesner

  • Software for the frontiers of quantum chemistry: An overview of developments in the Q-Chem 5 package

    Evgeny Epifanovsky;Andrew T.B. Gilbert;Andrew T.B. Gilbert;Xintian Feng;Xintian Feng;Joonho Lee

  • ReaxFFSiO Reactive Force Field for Silicon and Silicon Oxide Systems

    Adri C. T. van Duin;Alejandro Strachan;Shannon Stewman;Qingsong Zhang

  • High Performance Bifunctional Porous Non-Noble Metal Phosphide Catalyst for Overall Water Splitting

    Fang Yu;Fang Yu;Haiqing Zhou;Haiqing Zhou;Yufeng Huang;Jingying Sun

  • The X3LYP extended density functional for accurate descriptions of nonbond interactions, spin states, and thermochemical properties

    Xin Xu;William A. Goddard

  • Covalent organic frameworks as exceptional hydrogen storage materials.

    Sang Soo Han;Hiroyasu Furukawa;Omar M. Yaghi;William A. Goddard

  • Field-effect transistors made from solution-grown two-dimensional tellurene

    Yixiu Wang;Gang Qiu;Ruoxing Wang;Shouyuan Huang

  • Predictions of Hole Mobilities in Oligoacene Organic Semiconductors from Quantum Mechanical Calculations

    Wei-Qiao Deng;William A. Goddard

  • Benzene forms hydrogen bonds with water.

    Sakae Suzuki;Peter G. Green;Roger E. Bumgarner;Siddharth Dasgupta

  • Linear artificial molecular muscles

    Yi Liu;Amar H. Flood;Paul A. Bonvallet;Scott A. Vignon

Frequent Co-Authors

Adri C. T. van Duin
Adri C. T. van Duin Pennsylvania State University
Tahir Cagin
Tahir Cagin Texas A&M University
J. Fraser Stoddart
J. Fraser Stoddart Northwestern University
Roy A. Periana
Roy A. Periana Scripps Research Institute
Seung Soon Jang
Seung Soon Jang Georgia Institute of Technology
Yongchun Tang
Yongchun Tang California Institute of Technology
Donald W. Brenner
Donald W. Brenner North Carolina State University
Wei-Qiao Deng
Wei-Qiao Deng Shandong University
Xin Xu
Xin Xu Fudan University
Sang Soo Han
Sang Soo Han Korea Institute of Science and Technology

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