Terry Frankcombe

Associate Professor Terry Frankcombe serves as an Associate Professor in the School of Science at UNSW Canberra, University of New South Wales, and holds the position of Deputy Head of School (Research). He earned a Bachelor of Science with Honours and University Medal from the Australian National University in 1997 and a PhD from the University of Queensland in 2001. His career trajectory includes postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Queensland (2002-2003), Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands (2004-2006), Göteborgs Universitet in Sweden as a Marie Curie Fellow (2007), and the Australian National University (2008-2010). Frankcombe was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship at the Australian National University from 2011 to 2014 and briefly served as Associate Director of the National Youth Science Forum from December 2010 to March 2011. He joined UNSW Canberra as Senior Lecturer in the then Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences (PEMS) in 2015 and was promoted to Associate Professor in the renamed School of Science in 2019.

Frankcombe leads a research group focused on theoretical and computational chemical physics, investigating the influence of energetics and energy surfaces on dynamical properties. His research specializations encompass quantum dynamics method development, gas-surface potential energy surfaces and modelling, solid-state colossal permittivity materials, photosynthesis, interstellar chemistry, interpreting ab initio wave functions, and interfacial properties of graphene. His group belongs to the Quantum Dynamics Network and the Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling Erasmus Masters program. Notable publications include 'First principles potentials for reactions on molecular crystals: modelling the interstellar H + CO reaction' (Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2025), 'Energetics of Covalent Bonding from Wave Function Tiles' (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2025), 'Valence Bond Motifs from Wave Function Tesselation' (Comprehensive Computational Chemistry, 2024), 'Reactive Bimetallic Nanostructures Based on Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces: A Molecular Dynamics Study toward the Limits of Performance' (ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2023), and 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Wave Function' (Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 2022). Awards include the University Medal from the Australian National University (1997) and the Marie Curie Fellowship (2007).

Professional Email: t.frankcombe@adfa.edu.au