title: Michael Zerner
text: # Michael Zerner
  
  Michael Charles Zerner (January 1, 1940 – February 2, 2000) was an American theoretical chemist, professor at the University of Guelph from 1970 to 1981 and University of Florida from 1981 to 2000. Zerner earned his Ph.D. under Martin Gouterman at Harvard, working with the spectroscopy of porphyrins. He conceived and wrote a quantum chemistry program, known as BIGSPEC or ZINDO, for calculating electronic spectra of big molecules. In 1996 Zerner was diagnosed with liver cancer, and died on February 2, 2000, survived by his wife and two children.
  
  