Dr. Robert Kalescky

Dr. Robert Kalescky#

Principal Scientist#

Dr. Robert Kalescky was the Principal Scientist of the O’Donnell Data Science and Research Computing Institute at SMU May 2024 to May 2025 and prior was an HPC Applications Scientist at SMU since 2015. As the HPC Applications Scientist, he provided consultations for the parallelization, performance optimization, and scaling of research codes for use on SMU’s HPC clusters, from ManeFrame I and II to currently the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD and M3. He received his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Texas Tech University in 2006, his Master of Science in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2009, and his Ph.D in Chemistry from SMU in 2014. His chemical research career has spanned a wide breadth of length and time scales including some of the most accurate quantum chemical calculations published for several small molecules, large scale classical molecular dynamics simulations of nanoparticles and proteins, and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of extremely porous materials as molecular sieves. Additionally, he has been working on the development of computationally efficient machine-learned functionals for density functional theory simulations. In 2020, he was awarded the SMU President’s Award for Innovation for his work assisting in the safe return of students to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Education#

Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
August 2009 to May 2014
Description of the Strength of Chemical Bonds Utilizing Local Vibrational Modes

Master of Science in Chemistry
University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas
August 2007 to May 2009
Area Per Ligand as a Function of Nanoparticle Radius: A Theoretical and Computer Simulation Approach

Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, Minors in Mathematics and Chemistry
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas
August 2001 to May 2006
Prairie Grass Ethanol Production Pilot Plant Facility and Optimization

Research Experience#

Principal Scientist – May 2024 to May 2025
O’Donnell Data Science and Research Computing Institute
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

HPC Applications Scientist – May 2015 to May 2024
Research and Data Science Services
Office of Information Technology
Center for Research Computing (Previously)
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

Postdoctoral Fellow – January 2014 to May 2015
Advising Professor: Dr. Peng Tao
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry Candidate – August 2009 to December 2013
Advising Professors: Dr. Elfi Kraka and Dr. Dieter Cremer
Computational and Theoretical Chemistry Group (CATCO)
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

Master of Science in Chemistry Candidate – August 2007 to May 2009
Advising Professor: Dr. Steven Nielsen
University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas

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