Professor of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry
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Benedetta Mennucci was born in Lucca in 1969 and graduated in Chemistry in 1994. After the degree, she was awarded a grant to spend a year in the USA at the University of Colorado and the University of Pittsburgh. In 1999 she obtained a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Pisa, where she has carried out her academic career, first as researcher, then as associate professor and finally as full professor in the scientific area CHIM/02 – Physical Chemistry. In the term 2010-2013 she was Adjunt Professor of the Center for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, a centre of excellence established by the Research Council of Norway in 2007.

Institutional assignments

Professor Mennucci has been assigned several national and international institutional roles.

From 2012 to 2015 she was coordinator of the PhD School in Chemical and Materials Sciences at the University of Pisa. From 2016 to 2019 she was president of the degree programme in Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Pisa. From 2014 to 2016 she was president of the division of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society. Since 2014 she has been member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (IAQMS) and since 2015 a member of the Board of World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC). Since 2018 she has been a member of the PE4 panel for the IDEAS projects assessment of the European Research Council (Consolidator Grant).

Scientific and teaching activities

Professor Mennucci's main research activities concern the development of multiscale computational approaches combining a quantum chemical description with classical models and their application to the study of molecular processes in complex systems. The most recent applications have dealt with the study of light-harvesting processes in photosynthetic organisms and activation processes of photoreceptor proteins.

She coordinated national and international research projects. In 2011 she was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for a project entitled "The interplay between quantum coherence and environment in the photosynthetic electronic energy transfer and light- harvesting: a quantum chemical picture" (EnLight). In 2018 she obtained another ERC grant, this time an Advanced Grant, with a project titled "Light-Induced Function: from Excitation to Signal through Time and Space" (LLIFETimeS).

Her scientific activities have resulted in more than 350 publications on peer-reviewed international scientific journal, along with several chapters of books. She received more than 44,000 citations with H-index of 71 (up to 2022) Professor Mennucci is Senior Editor of the scientific journal  The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, as well as member of the Editorial Advisory Board of several international scientific journals.

Professor Mennucci has mainly taught Physical Chemistry courses for the degree programme in Chemistry, but she has also taught molecular modeling for other degree programmes and PhD schools in Italy and abroad.