Charles Stedman Parmenter

Charles Stedman Parmenter was a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. His chemical physics research focused on excitation energy flow among molecular energy levels. His development of single vibronic level fluorescnece spectroscopy provided the first way to study how isolated molecules respond to selective vibrational excitation as well as the first means for reliable vibrational assignments of electronic absorption spectra. It opened a widely used approach to state-to-state collisional energy transfer in large molecules leading to the discovery of strong selection rules. His development of chemical timing fluorescnece spectroscopy provided the early picosecond time scles for collision-free vibrational energy flow within excited molecules.