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03/14/2012 Emerson Center Lectureship Award Symposium 2012 is under preparation.

* Profs. Brian Dyer and Susanna Widicus-Weaver of Chemistry Department are our newest subscribers.

* The Center has purchased a new HPC cluster. The cluster consists of a server + 36 compute nodes interconnected by a gigabit switch. The total number of compute cores is over 600.

* The Center welcomes Prof. Huw Davies of Chemistry as the latest subscriber.

* A new High Performance Computing cluster has been put into production at the Center. The cluster features a 2.8 GHz AMD64's Opteron server and 32 dual-socket dual-core (4 way) compute nodes with 3.0 GHz Opteron processors and 8 GB of RAM. Current subscribers has an automatic access to the cluster with their existing ID & password.

* The Center welcomes two new subscribers, Dr. Lanny Liebeskind and Dr. Tim Lian of Chemistry department.

Dr. Cherry Logan Emerson passed away on April 29, 2007
We regret to announce that Dr. Cherry Logan Emerson, a longtime friend, advisor and benefactor of Emory University passed away on April 29, 2007 at the age of 90. A memorial service is planned at 3 pm, at Central Congregational Church, on May 26. Arrangements by H. M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill 1020 Spring St. Atlanta, GA 30309

CL Emerson
Death Notice

The familiar Jesuit axiom "Give me the child and I'll give you the man" is borne out by the life of Cherry Logan Emerson. As a boy growing up in Atlanta, he excelled at his studies; played sports; tinkered in his basement woodworking shop; spied on his sister Dorothy and her pretty friends; enjoyed, studied and played music and embarked on his first business venture. He was named after both the Cherry and Emerson sides of his family and embodied each in his giftedness for both science and music.

His schooling took him from Morningside Elementary to Boy's High and on to Emory University. His most memorable chemistry lesson did not take place in the classroom, however, but at the home of his paternal grandfather William Henry Emerson. Dr. Emerson was the founding member of the Georgia Tech Chemistry faculty and a loving grandfather. After young Cherry accidentally set a fire in the kitchen, he received a lesson on the chemistry of fire while his grandfather calmly extinguished the flames. At Emory he earned both a BA (1938) and MA (1939) in Chemistry. Then taking what he always said was his father‚s only piece of advice, he went 'up north' to study Chemical Engineering at M.I.T. where he earned an MS in Chemical Engineering under his major professor Warren K. Lewis. Although Dr. Lewis was a somewhat awesome figure at first, he was to later offer him room and board in exchange for household labor such as stoking the furnace. Dr. Lewis always had an eye for promising students and was persuaded by this one to switch fuels from coal to coke. Doc Lewis was also to become his father-in-law in 1942 when Cherry married his youngest daughter Mary. The same passion which Cherry applied to his studies, he then applied to his life's work as a chemical engineer. In 1948, only a few years out of school, he and his friend Bill Cuming founded Emerson and Cuming Co. The history of their collaboration has been well documented, but the most significant aspect of their consulting and manufacturing business was innovation. They created original solutions to scientific/technical problems and created and patented an entirely new line of products for the electronics industry. In 1978, the two partners sold their company, now Emerson and Cuming, Inc., which had grown from a small lab in Boston, Massachusetts into a worldwide enterprise. Cherry returned to his hometown of Atlanta in 1985 to become a major philanthropist in both chemistry and music. Although he never became an academic, Emerson deeply admired the chemistry faculty at his alma mater, Emory University. Of his many endowments in chemistry, the William Henry Emerson Chair of Chemistry at Emory best reflects both his respect for their work and the wellspring from which it sprang ‚ his paternal grandfather.

As a boy, Cherry loved a well told tale. He favored adventure stories, especially Treasure Island, which his grandfather Emerson read to him many times. Later in life, he read it to his sons and very recently gave a copy to his 10 and 8 year old great-grandsons Austin and Hadden Wright.

In elementary school, Cherry played football with the Morningside Wildcats. He learned to play golf with his father at the Ansley Park golf course, a sport which he also played in college and took up again in later life after decades of playing tennis. At the age of 86, he and his son Ned won the Father-Son golf tournament at the Duxbury Yacht Club. He often played in a threesome with his son Ned and grandson young Ned (now a college student). Cherry was a sports lover and fan as well as a player. He took his children to Red Sox games in Fenway Park, starting a tradition which continues to this day. At the age of 81, he attended his first World Series game in Atlanta with his daughter and baseball buddy Kathy. He exclaimed "My first World Serie" as if, always the optimist, there would be more such events in the future. During summer vacations in Duxbury there were many years of family outings to Red Sox Games. Most recently his son Warren and grandson Christopher witnessed the triumph of the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series.

Cherry's first wood working shop was in the basement of his Morningside house. He had an elaborately outfitted shop in the basement of his home in Duxbury where he made gifts for friends and family, including a cradle for his first great-grandson Austin. This cradle has now been passed to his great-grandchildren Wyatt and Jessa Dunn.

As a boy, Cherry studied the piano with Alfredo Barili, a well known teacher in Atlanta. This experience surely inspired him to buy his own piano as a teen-ager. He loved being a spear-bearer in the opera Aida during the years when the Metropolitan Opera came to Atlanta (in part sponsored by his maternal grandfather Woods White). He played the piano for pleasure for many years and encouraged his children to take piano lessons. He took his children to the Boston Symphony and to the Boston Pops once he could afford the tickets. In the early years of his business,
with three young children, he could not. Although he never became a professional musician (advised by his piano teacher to 'keep his day job') he was a passionate supporter of tho who were. In later life, his patronage of music in Atlanta included support for the symphony and especially for his favorite music of all, chamber music. He also commissioned a book about his beloved piano teacher, Alfredo Barili and sponsored a piano competition in his honor.

Cherry's first business enterprise began when he was 11 years old. Having his eye on the prize, he floated a small loan from his mother Sina who recognized a good prospect when she saw it! He parlayed three dollars into over six hundred by selling coca colas (chilled at home) to construction workers in his Morningside neighborhood. During the Great Depression it was possible for him to buy a Steinway baby grand piano, his musical treasure. His originality, enterprising spirit and long view of future prospects were the qualities which made his life‚s work at
Emerson & Cuming flourish as well. When this season of his life ended, he came back home to plant the fruits of his labors.

Cherry Emerson died at his residence in Atlanta, surrounded by his family. The room was filled with the Mozart piano concertos that he loved. His life had finally come, too soon for those who loved him, full circle.

A memorial service will be held at Central Congregational Church in Atlanta on May 26 at 3 p.m.

By PIERRE RUHE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/01/07
Cherry Logan Emerson, on the advice of a maestro, abandoned music as a career to become a scientist and philanthropist. A 1938 graduate of Emory College and a 1939 graduate of Emory's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Mr. Emerson was credited by the university as its biggest benefactor in recent years. His name is on an Emory science hall, professorship, science lecture series and concert hall. Gifts and endowments from Mr. Emerson and his wife, Mary Lewis Emerson of Atlanta, helped buttress Atlanta's classical music community from an endowed chair in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to endowments for the Atlanta Chamber Players and Emory's Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. Mr. Emerson donated $1 million to build Emory's 825-seat concert hall within the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The Emersons supported Emory's golf team, too. "It's a devastating loss for Atlanta's music community," said pianist Paula Peace, whose Atlanta Chamber Players was heavily financed by Mr. Emerson. For a few years, Mr. Emerson served as its executive director as a sort of retirement-age hobby. "He made a phenomenal difference in the arts and the sciences in Atlanta," Ms. Peace said. "He was a razor-sharp businessman and also warm and caring, like a father. It would take 10 people to replace him." Mr. Emerson, 90, died at his Atlanta residence Sunday. The memorial service is at 3 p.m. May 26 at Central Congregational
Church. H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill, is in charge of arrangements.

Cherry Logan Emerson studied piano under Alfredo Barili. Advised to try a different career, he became a scientist. A third-generation scientist, his grandfather was a founding dean at Georgia Tech, Mr. Emerson received a
doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a fortune through patents and products developed by Emerson and Cuming, a Massachusetts chemical engineering firm he co-founded and led for 35 years. MIT, too, is a major recipient of Mr. Emerson's largess.

His firm specialized in chemical compounds and coatings for the defense and aerospace industries. Mr. Emerson's compounds helped make the U.S. military's stealth bomber invisible to microwave radiation, and thus radar, and he provided materials for the re-entry heat shields for NASA's Apollo missions and for the space shuttle. The microwave-absorbing material ended up being used in private industry to make clean rooms to test electronic equipment.
His business acumen and love of classical music were apparent early on. When he was 11, he borrowed $3 from his mother to buy Coca-Cola, he often regaled his friends with this story, which he sold at a profit to construction workers in his Morningside neighborhood. It took a day to earn back the loan principal. Three years later he'd amassed $685.02, which he spent on a Steinway six-foot grand piano, an instrument he still owned almost eight decades later. In 1930, at 14, Mr. Emerson met Alfredo Barili, then 77, a concert pianist who had played for Brahms and Liszt as a child and who is sometimes credited as Atlanta's first professional musician. Mr. Emerson studied with Mr. Barili four years, until the maestro was killed by a bus on Ponce de Leon Avenue. In a 1998 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mr. Emerson recounted Mr. Barili's blunt verdict on his playing:
"He advised me not to consider a career in music because I wasn't good enough. And he was absolutely right." At Emory, his two lifelong passions, science and music, have had an enduring effect: The most popular double
major at the university is chemistry and music. Survivors other than his wife include three daughters, Mary Emerson-Smith of Atlantic Beach, Fla., Katharine Emerson of Atlanta and Laura Dunn of Oakland, Calif.; three sons, William Emerson of Holden, Mass., Warren Emerson of Arlington, Va.,
and Ned Emerson of Holliston, Mass.; 11 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

The 2007 EC Lectureship Award Symposium concluded successfully on April 6, 2007. About 120 people attended both the oral presentation sessions and the poster sessions. Among the 27 poster presentations, two cash awards for $100 each was awarded to this year's best posters, Mr. Matthew Tessier (UGA, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center) and Dr. Anil Mehta (Emory, Department of Chemistry).

Emerson Center Welcomes New Subscriber
Emerson Center welcomes Dr. Dale Edmondson, Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry, as the newest subscriber to the Emerson Center. The research focus of Dr. Edmondson’s laboratory involves investigations of structure-func-tion relationships in enzymes catalyzing oxidation-reduction reactions. Among the enzymes belonging to this class, particular emphasis is given to theflavoenzymes, monoamine oxidases A and B, (MAO A) and (MAO B), respectively. Severalof these enzymes are important targets in thedevelopment of drug therapies such as anti-depressants (monoamine oxidase). The MAOA and MAO B project involves structure-activity studies to probe the structure of theamine binding site and to probe the detailedmechanism of oxidative deamination of amineneurotransmitters. Ongoing work includes thedetermination of the structure of MAO A andthe investigation of site directed mutants ofboth MAO A and MAO B to probe theirmechanisms of amine oxidation and the binding of antidepressants andneuroprotective agents to the catalytic centers of each enzyme. Dr. Edmondson plans to use the Emerson Center facilities to expand his computational stud-ies (starting with a collaboration with Drs. Rajeev Prabhakar, Jamal Musaev and Keiji Morokuma) on the mechanism of amine oxidation and thebinding of antidepressants and neuroprotective agents to the catalytic cen-ters of each enzyme.

Emerson Center New Structure
The Cherry L. Emerson Center for Scientific Computation was established in 1991. Prof. Joel Bowman served as Acting Director and was succeeded by Keiji Morokuma as Director in 1993. During this period, the EC has grown and contributed greatly to computationally oriented science at Emory. In 2006, after Keiji's retirement, a committee structure has been set up to take on the responsibilities previously held by Keiji. For more details visit this page.