David Chandler (October 15, 1944 – April 18, 2017) was a physical chemist.He was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a winner of the Irving Langmuir Award. He published two books and over 300 scientific articles.
Chandler's primary area of research was statistical mechanics. With it, he created many of the basic techniques with which condensed matter chemical equilibrium and chemical dynamics are understood with molecular theory. He provided the modern language and concepts for describing structure and dynamics of liquids, a series of contributions that has allowed quantitative and analytical treatments of simple and polyatomic fluids, of aqueous solutions and hydrophobic effects, and of polymeric melts and blends. He also developed the methods by which rare but important events can be simulated on a computer, techniques that culminated in Chandler's development of a statistical physics of trajectory space. This work enabled his studies of systems far from equilibrium, including processes of self-assembly and the glass transition.