Daniel W. Wright
Associate Professor & Director, Honors Program
(336) 584-2296
Office: Whitley 109A
Physical Chemistry:
ab initio calculations
E-mail: wright@numen.elon.edu
Dr. Wright received his B.S. in chemistry from Stonehill College
(1986) and his Ph.D. from Duke University (1990) working with Professor
D. B. Chestnut (dissertation, "Effects of Long and Short Range Interactions
on the NMR Chemical Shift"). He is a member of Sigma Xi and Phi Lambda
Upsilon.
Dr. Wright's research involves the determination of first- and second-order
derivatives describing NMR chemical shift in simple molecules to establish
correlations with structure. A chemical shift derivative indicates how
much the position of an NMR signal will move when the geometry of a molecule
is changed. Dr. Wright has taken students to present research results at
five meetings of the American Chemical Society and the National Conference
on Undergraduate Research. He is an active participant in Project Kaleidoscope's
"Faculty for the Twenty-First Century" Program. With the support
of a Teagle Grant, a faculty team which included Dr. Wright has developed
a new interdisciplinary course entitled "Science Without Borders"
which is offered every semester.
Publications
"Chemical Shift Defivatives for HSi(O)-X Substituted First Row
Hydrides", D. W. Wright & J. L. Jennings, Main Group Metal
Chemistry (1994) 17, 387. "Chemical Shift Bond Derivatives for
Molecules Containing First-Row Atoms", D. B. Chestnut & D. W.
Wright, J. Comp. Chem. (1991) 12, 546.
"NMR Chemical Shifts and Intramolecular Van der Waals Interactions:
Carbonyl and Ether Systems", D. B. Chestnut & D. W. Wright, J.
Molec. Struc. (1988) 190, 99.
"Effects of Torsion on the C-13 Chemical Shift in Ethane", D.
B. Chestnut & D. W. Wright, Chem. Phys. Lett (1988) 151, 415.