Axel Dieter Becke FRS (born June 10, 1953) is a physical chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Dalhousie University, Canada.
[2] Becke contributed in the development of non-LCAO, grid-based numerical methodologies for molecular orbital calculations.
Density functional theory (DFT) was originally designed to describe metallic solid state systems.
Becke, along with his co-researcher John Perdew, demonstrated that DFT could be an effective tool in quantum chemistry as well, where it is used to describe the structure and energetics of molecules.
[4] Part of the funds from this award were used to establish was the Herzberg–Becke Chair in Theoretical Chemistry at Dalhousie University, which is currently held by Erin Johnson, one of his former Ph.D. students.