Professor Ksenia Bravaya Awarded $405,000 3 Year NSF-CTMC Grant to study Metastable Electronic States
By: Daniel Hauck
Professor Ksenia Bravaya, Patricia Mclellan Leavitt Research Fund Awardee
Ksenia Bravaya, who has been an Assistant Professor of Computational Quantum Chemistry here at BU since August 2013, was recently awarded a 3-year $405,000 grant from the National Science Foundation‘s Chemical Theory, Models and Computational Methods (CTMC) division to pursue her research into Metastable Electronic States.
Specifically, electron-molecule interactions often lead to complex chemistry initiated by electron capture into a temporary state that has enough energy to eject an electron, yet, lives long enough to trigger a chemical reaction. The lifetime of a metastable state, therefore, sets the timescale for the chemical conversion. Metastable electronic states are key intermediates in radiation damage of biomolecules and electron-attachment-induced chemistry in general; they are also routinely formed in highly energetic environments, e.g. plasmas. This research program will develop new models enabling quantitative predictions of the energies and lifetimes of metastable electronic states. The computational studies are aimed at advancing the understanding of the role of metastable states in radiation damage of biological systems, in photovoltaics, and catalysis.
For more information on what Professor Bravaya and her Research Group are up to click here.
