Canadian Rep to Council Candidate: Chérif F. Matta 

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I am honoured to be considered as Canadian Representative on the ACA Council. As a Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Mount Saint Vincent University, with Honorary Professor appointments at Dalhousie, Laval, and Saint Mary’s Universities (all in Canada), my research bridges quantum chemistry, theoretical biophysics, and crystallography. I would like to imagine we have contributed meaningfully particularly with the discovery of the hydrogen-hydrogen bonding, a new role of the enzyme ATP synthase in intermediary metabolism, the invention of the electron localization-delocalization matrices (LDMs) and their use in the modeling of several classes of compounds, and to the development of quantum crystallography. I am a twice elected member of the Commission on Quantum Crystallography of the IUCr, Organized and Chaired the 2018 IUCr Sagamore Conference in my city (Halifax, Canada), and published the monograph titled Quantum Crystallography (with Huang and Massa) in 2023 (De Guryter), the penultimate of my four books (among some 200 publications).

Having trained under the founder of the Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM), Prof.  Richard F. W. Bader at McMaster University and subsequently by Nobel Laureate Prof. John C. Polanyi as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and, later, in the laboratory of noted crystallographer Professor Claude Lecomte (Former Vice President of the IUCr) for my Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR), and having collaborated across North America, Europe, the Middle East, my native Egypt and the broader Africa, I have long championed the integration of theory and experiment in structural science. My service includes extensive mentoring of students and postdoctoral researchers, organization of some 40 conferences and symposia, and the active promotion of crystallographic research within the broader Canadian and international scientific communities.

An elected Fellow the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the African Academy of Sciences, of the Royal Society of Chemistry, of the Chemical Institute of Canada, of the Institute of Physics, of the Royal Society of Biology, and of the Royal Society of Arts, I gained a deep appreciation of what learned societies can contribute.

I believe the American Crystallographic Association plays a vital role in fostering innovation and collaboration across borders especially between the US, Canada, and Mexico. If elected, I will work to strengthen Canada’s voice within the ACA, the presence and visibility of Canadian crystallographers within ACA, promote emerging crystallographic methods such as electron density-based analyses, and enhance opportunities for young scientists and underrepresented minorities and women to engage with the ACA’s vibrant community. I will work to promote closer dialogue between theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches - a true passion of mine. As an active member of the African Academy of Sciences, I plan to strengthen the ties between North America and Africa (which has a growing interest in the science of crystallography including remote access to diffractometers and computational facilities across continents). Please visit my web-site (https://www.cmatta.ca/) or my African Academy of Sciences profile (https://aasciences.africa/fellows/Cherif-Farid-Matta). Thank you.