Branka Marie Ladanyi

With great sadness, we mark the passing of Professor Branka M. Ladanyi on January 30, 2016 in Fort Collins, Colorado. Branka was a woman of exceptional talent and grace, a pioneer in her field and for women in academia. She joined Colorado State University as an assistant professor in 1979 and rose through the ranks to professor in 1987.

Over the course of her career, Branka contributed profoundly to the theory and modeling of liquids, supercritical fluids and molecular clusters. Her work dramatically increased our understanding of structure and dynamics of molecular fluids. She blended theoretical and computational statistical mechanics to explore phenomena such as vibrational relaxation, light scattering, nonlinear optical response, and dielectric relaxation in bulk fluids, molecular clusters, microemulsions, and at liquid interfaces. She welcomed collaborations with many scientists, both theorists and experimentalists, around the world. The unifying theme in her research was the desire to unravel the complex dynamics in these systems and phenomena at a microscopic level – a goal that has challenged scientists for generations and one critical for the comprehension of real chemical processes. Branka achieved this goal in a diverse range of contexts.

Branka was a leader and pioneer in the scientific community. She served on executive committees both for the American Physical Society Division of Chemical Physics and for the American Chemical Society Division of Physical Chemistry. In addition to presenting her work broadly around the world, she also organized several national and international meetings, workshops and symposia, and reviewed programs both in the US and abroad. In 1994, the Journal of Chemical Physics named Branka one of its first two associate editors. She served as the interim editor-in-chief of the journal from 2007 through 2008. As the first woman to hold such a position at this prominent scientific journal, she paved the way serving as a role model for other women scientists, who now regularly serve as editors of major research journals.

Born in Zagreb, Croatia (then Yugoslavia) Branka’s family moved to Quebec, Canada, where she finished high school. She earned the bachelor’s degree in physics with First Class Honors from McGill University in 1969 and continued to earn the PhD from Yale in chemistry in 1973, working with Prof. Marshall Fixman, who would later become her husband of 41 years. Her strong contributions to science earned her recognition with a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, as well as fellowship in the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Chemical Society.

Branka’s quiet but firm demeanor served her well in the Chemistry Department and beyond. She was well respected by all who knew her. We will miss her gentle ways that led us over the years, her vast knowledge of the physics and chemistry of liquids, and her modest approach to science and life.