Ann E. Orel is an American physical chemist and computational scientist who is Professor Emerita in chemical engineering at the University of California, Davis, and is affiliated with the Ultrafast X-Ray Science Laboratory at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has published research in theoretical atomic and molecular physics and computational methods for molecular dynamics and electron scattering. In 2000, she was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Orel served on the faculty at the University of California, Davis, including in leadership roles in the Department of Applied Sciences. She is listed as Professor Emerita in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering.
Orel is also listed as a member of the theory group/people roster of the Ultrafast X-Ray Science Laboratory at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Research
UC Davis describes Orel’s work as using wave packet methods (numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation) for molecular dynamics, and the Complex Kohn variational method for electron scattering calculations.
Service and professional activities
Orel has served in elected or appointed roles within the American Physical Society, including listing as a General Councillor in APS governance materials.
In 2007, she criticized vague and inconsistently applied grant-review expectations as potentially counterproductive for early-career scientists and noted that women in physics could be treated as contributing to diversity “by existing.”
Honors and recognition
1980 – Anna Louise Hoffman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Research
Fellow of the American Physical Society
References
12"Ann Orel". UC Davis Chemical Engineering. 2019-08-01. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
