Stay up to date with the happenings of the Gagliardi group!
Graduate student, Teffanie Goh, is selected as one of the recipients of a Department of Chemistry Graduate Student Award. The Olshansky Graduate Student Travel Award is part of a group of Department of Chemistry awards at the University of Chicago that provides funding to help defray registration and conference costs for students and postdocs presenting at scientific conferences. Bravo, Teffanie!
Valay Agarawal, Matthew Hennefarth, Zihan Pengmei, and Shreya Verma passed their candidacy exams. Congratulations to the four of them!
The Gagliardi group shared a meal and chatted with some promising first-year graduate students whom we hope will join our group.
The Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center (CD4DC), a U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC), is based at the University of Chicago. PIs, senior scientists, junior researchers, and the Scientific Advisory Board gathered at The Study at University of Chicago for the Kick-Off Meeting on October 10 -11, 2022. Let the science begin!
A good time discussing science and brainstorming was had by the Gagliardi group in St. Joseph, MI for a group retreat.
Laura is the Director of the Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center (CD4DC), a Department of Energy-sponsored Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC). The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded researchers at the University of Chicago $12.5 million to advance work aimed at finding innovative solutions for long-lasting hydrogen energy research — potentially offering a zero-emission alternative to fossil fuels. Based at the University of Chicago, the CD4DC will partner with researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, Clemson University, Northwestern University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Minnesota. Read the article here.
Postdoc Dario Campisi will begin a new role as a Humboldt fellow at the University of Stuttgart. Congratulations Dario on also being named the Head of Astrochemistry in the Kästner group. Bravo!
The Gagliardi group had a great time at ACS Fall 2022, sharing nine oral talks and four posters throughout the meeting. Laura delivered the Fred Kavli Innovations in Chemistry Lecture on Tuesday, August 23rd entitled Quantum leaps: Chemistry and creativity in a changing world. Her keynote explored how theory, computation, and machine intelligence can work together to help create a more sustainable world and address environmental challenges such as water scarcity, global warming, and clean energy. See you at the next meeting!
Dr. Thais Scott successfully defended her doctoral thesis with the title “Multi-Configuration Pair-Density Functional Theory Developments and Applications to Photochemically Relevant Excited States.” Thais has been selected as a Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) Software Fellow at the University of California, Irvine. Bravo, Thais!
Laura shares what is next for the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation and reflects on serving as Editor-in-Chief in the journal’s recent editorial. The article highlights emerging topics that will receive JCTC’s support and the journal’s societal responsibilities beyond knowledge generation and technological innovation. Read more here.
The Gagliardi Group is excited to receive a $1.8 million grant over three years from the U.S. Department of Energy to advance the development of sophisticated modeling and simulation software for the chemical sciences.
The Gagliardi group is excited to welcome undergraduate Ariadna Fernandez (University of Illinois Chicago) and graduate student Francesca Fasulo (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) from Naples, Italy. Ariadna joins us from the Open Quantum Initiative (OQI) Undergraduate Fellowship, a summer program focused on developing students’ “research literacy” skills and their exposure to the wide diversity of physics subfields (including experimental, computational, and theoretical approaches).
Grad students Valay Agarawal, Matthew Hennefarth, Ricardo Almada Monter, Zihan Pengmei, and Shreya Verma successfully complete their first year of graduate school and receive approval to prepare for their Ph.D. Candidacy Examination. Bravo, everyone!
Dr. Riddhish Umesh Pandharkar successfully defended his doctoral thesis with the title “Localized multireference methods for strongly correlated systems.” Riddhish has accepted a position at OpenEye Scientific as a Scientific Software Developer located in Santa Fe, NM. Congratulations, Riddhish!
Graduate student, Daniel King is one of two recipients of the Otto H. and Valerie Windt Memorial Fellowship. The award will provide a $400 honorarium and salary support during the 2022 – 2023 academic year. Way to go, Daniel!
Postdoc Dario Campisi‘s project proposal, “A new theoretical method of general applicability to study the chemistry of our solar system”, was recognized with a Seal of Excellence by the European Commission submitted under the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions call HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-01 — MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021. The project was recognized as a high-quality project proposal in a highly competitive evaluation process but could not receive funding due to budgetary constraints and was therefore recommended by the European Commission for funding by other sources.
Laura has been elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, one of the world’s oldest existing learned societies. The German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina was founded in 1652 as a classical scholarly society and now boasts 1,600 members from almost all branches of science. Notable members include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Joseph Lister, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein. Throughout its history, 186 members have won Nobel prizes. Read the article on Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s website.
The Gagliardi Group website has been awarded silver by the MUSE Creative Awards. This recognition is a part of the MUSE Awards Program, which was created by the International Awards Associate (IAA) in 2015. IAA’s inception was based on a mission to honor, promote and encourage creativity by providing a new standard of excellence for evaluating media design production and distribution. Read the announcement here.
Laura shares her research trajectory and projects, insights into the synergy between experimental and computational chemistry, and her advice for women and young scientists in Nature Computational Science. Read the interview here.
Graduate student, Ben Yeh, is selected as one of the recipients of a 2022 Kokes Award for the 27th North American Catalysis Society meeting in New York, NY being held on May 22-27, 2022. This travel award, sponsored by the North American Catalysis Society, provides funding for the conference registration fee and accommodation to encourage students to attend and participate in this biennial conference.
Sílvia Escayola, a Ph.D. student at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Girona in Spain, joins the group as a visiting scholar during Winter 2022 to collaborate with Gagliardi Group members. Welcome, Sílvia!
The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) announced that four of its leading journals will be under the direction of new editors in chief beginning in 2022, with Laura leading the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation (JCTC). Read the press release on the ACS website.
Post doc, Aleks Lykhin, is one of two recipients of the 2021-2022 Suzuki Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. The award recognizes outstanding postdoctoral researchers and provides a salary top-off. Bravo, Aleks! Read the story on the Physical Sciences Division website.
The Gagliardi Group is excited to launch its new website. Feel free to take a look around!
The Gagliardi Group took to the ice for our holiday party. Happy Holidays!
