Category Archives: People and Events

We’re thrilled to announce that Mónica Lugo has joined the Gagliardi Group as our new Managing Director. She brings a wealth of experience in administration and a heartfelt dedication to community development.

Before stepping into this role, Mónica served as the Executive Assistant to Maestro Riccardo Muti at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where she expertly managed his extensive agenda and fostered global stakeholder relationships since 2017. Additionally, Mónica has led the Alegre Strings Program at Merit School of Music for over a decade, guiding hundreds of students from underserved communities to achieve remarkable success in music and beyond.

With certifications in Net Zero and Sustainability Analysis, along with a Master of Music from Johns Hopkins University, Mónica brings a unique blend of skills and vision to her new position.

Welcome, Mónica!

Daniel King successfully defended his PhD thesis titled “Developments and Applications of Automated Multiconfigurational Quantum Chemistry.” In August, he will embark on a postdoctoral journey at the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet at UC Berkeley. While we will miss Daniel, we eagerly anticipate his future successes.

Abhishek Mitra receives the IBM-Zerner Graduate Student Award from Professor Richard G. Hennig at the 63rd Sanibel Symposium for his poster presentation, Towards Practical Quantum Chemistry on Quantum Computers using Localized Active Spaces. Congratulations, Abhishek!

The Gagliardi Group congratulates Joanna Wang for successfully passing her candidacy exam! Joanna’s work focuses on “Unraveling chemical processes through hybrid quantum-classical algorithms with localized wave functions.” Her primary research interests are developing hybrid algorithms for multireference theory and studying chemical reactions with multireference methods. We eagerly anticipate her continued success and contributions to the field. Well done, Joanna!

We are thrilled to introduce our newest Graduate Students to the Gagliardi Research Group: Ida Vaghefi, Ruohe (Brian) Wang, and Aniruddha Seal!

Abhishek Mitra and Shreya Verma received Windt Graduate Student Travel Awards and Mukunda Mandal received the Kharasch Postdoctoral Travel Award.

Pictured: Abhishek Mitra, Shreya Verma, Mukunda Mandal

During the retreat, the group engaged in fruitful discussions about science and participated in collaborative brainstorming.