Robert Parr

Robert Ghormley Parr (born September 22, 1921 in Chicago) is a theoretical chemist. He is a chemistry professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Parr received an A. B. degree magna cum laude from Brown University in 1942, and then entered the University of Minnesota, receiving a Ph. D. in physical chemistry in 1947. He joined the faculty at Minnesota upon receiving his Ph. D. and remained there one year. In 1948 he moved to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, becoming a full professor in 1957. In 1962 he moved to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and in 1974 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received appointment to an endowed professorship in 1990 and where he now teaches.

Working with DuPont chemist Rudolph Pariser, Parr developed a method of computing approximate molecular orbitals for pi electron systems, published in 1953. Since an identical procedure was derived by John A. Pople the same year, it is generally referred to as the Pariser-Parr-Pople method or PPP method. The PPP method differed from existing structural chemistry thinking (which advocated maximum overlap principle) by advancing the concept of zero differential overlap approximation.

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