Rate My Professor Todd Knippenberg

Todd Knippenberg is an Associate Professor of Physical/Computational Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry in the Wanek School of Natural Sciences at High Point University. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Georgia Southern University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Clemson University, where he completed his dissertation on the interaction between hydrogen and various carbon nanostructures in 2006. Knippenberg joined High Point University in 2010 as an Assistant Professor, advancing to Associate Professor and later assuming the role of Department Chair. His career at the university includes leadership in the Chemistry department and contributions to broader academic initiatives within the Wanek School of Natural Sciences.

Knippenberg's research centers on computational chemistry, with a focus on tribology, the study of friction at the atomic level. He develops and applies innovative computer algorithms and potential energy functions to model intermolecular interactions accurately. A key achievement is the bond-order potential with split-charge equilibration for carbon-, hydrogen-, and oxygen-containing systems, detailed in the Journal of Chemical Physics (Knippenberg et al., 136:164701, 2012). His investigations extend to friction in the presence of water, essential for understanding wear mechanisms, and simulations of novel coatings designed to minimize wear. Earlier work includes molecular dynamics simulations examining the effects of diameter and chirality on hydrogen adsorption in carbon nanotubes (Cheng et al., J. Phys. Chem. B, 2005) and simulations of amorphous carbon using bond-order potentials. Knippenberg mentors undergraduate students extensively through programs such as the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SuRPS) and the High Point University Research and Creativity Symposium (HIGH-PURCS). Student projects under his guidance have addressed alternative fuels, physical properties of recyclable materials, tetrahydrofuran stabilization, and more, resulting in presentations at national conferences including SERMACS and ACS national meetings. As Department Chair, he oversees faculty, curriculum, and research activities in chemistry.