Biosketch

Laura Gagliardi is the Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor at the University of Chicago with a joint appointment at the Department of Chemistry and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. She also serves as the Director for the Chicago Center for Theoretical Chemistry. She received her Ph.D. degree in theoretical chemistry from the University of Bologna in 1997, and then spent two years at Cambridge University, in England, as a postdoctoral scholar. She began her independent academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Palermo, Italy, moving in 2005 to take an appointment as associate professor at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland. In 2009, she moved to the US as a professor at the University of Minnesota, where she remained prior to her move to Chicago in 2020.

Laura Gagliardi has received many recognitions from the chemistry community, including Faraday Lectureship Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2021; the Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 2020; the Award in Theoretical Chemistry from the Physical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society in 2019, the Humboldt research award in 2018, and the Bourke Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016. Moreover, she is an Elected Member of Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2021), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020), the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (2019) and Academia Europaea (2018). She also serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Research Interests

Laura Gagliardi's group is interested in the development of novel quantum chemical methods for strongly correlated systems and the combination of first-principles methods with classical simulation techniques. The applications are focused on the computational design of novel materials and molecular systems for energy-related challenges. Special focus is devoted to modeling catalysis and spectroscopy in molecular systems; catalysis and gas separations in porous materials; photovoltaic properties of organic and inorganic semiconductors; actinides; quantum materials.

Membership Type

Member

Election Year

2021

Primary Section

Section 14: Chemistry

Secondary Section

Section 33: Applied Physical Sciences