Rate My Professor Carol Parish

Carol Parish holds the Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Chair in Chemistry and serves as Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Richmond, where she joined as Associate Professor in 2005. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University in 1994 under Clifford Dykstra, M.S. in Polymer Chemistry from Indiana-Purdue University Indianapolis in 1990, and B.S. in Chemistry from the same institution in 1988. Earlier in her career, Parish was Associate Professor (2003–2005) and Assistant Professor (1997–2003) at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, conducted a sabbatical as Visiting Scientist at Cornell University with Roald Hoffmann (2003–2004), and served as Fujitsu Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University with W. Clark Still (1994–1996). She also founded Scientific Solutions Inc. and Synchronicity Inc. in the mid-1990s.

A leader in computational physical chemistry, Parish's research employs quantum mechanics, conformational searching, and free energy simulations to investigate molecular structure, energy, and dynamics in biological and chemical systems, including reactivity of di- and poly-radicals in anti-cancer enediyne drugs, SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding, MEMO signaling protein drug design, DNA polymerase fidelity, and thermal decompositions. She has published 58 peer-reviewed articles, with notable works such as "Variations on the Bergman Cyclization Theme: Electrocyclizations of Ionic Penta-, Hepta- and Octa-diynes" (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2023), "Computational Drug Discovery of an Inhibitor of APOBEC3B as a Treatment for Epithelial Cancers" (Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Function, 2023), "Halogen Bonding in DNA Base Pairs" (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2012), and "An Extended Multireference Study of the Electronic States of para-benzyne" (Journal of Chemical Physics, 2008). Parish has raised over $4 million in grants from NSF, DOE, ACS-PRF, and Dreyfus Foundation, and mentored more than 100 undergraduates, many from underrepresented groups, fostering their co-authorship on publications and STEM career advancement. Her contributions earned the American Chemical Society Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution (2019), State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award (2018), University of Richmond Outstanding Mentor Award (2008), and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2005).