Laurie J. Butler received her B.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. After postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin, she joined the faculty at The University of Chicago, where she has been a professor since 1987. Professor Butler's research investigates the fundamental inter- and intramolecular forces that drive the course of chemical reactions. Much of her recent work investigates classes of important chemical reactions where the breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation (the inability of the electronic wavefunction to readjust rapidly enough during the nuclear dynamics) near the transition state alters the dynamics and markedly reduces the reaction rate. She has been an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and was awarded the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at The University of Chicago.
