Prof. Katarzyna Pernal is an internationally recognised expert in methods of quantum chemistry and molecular physics. She has received the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science Medal, awarded to only one person in the world in a given year, for her outstanding contribution to these fields of science. She is among 12 outstanding scientists from Poland, nominated to the Heisig Prize, called the Polish "Little Nobel" or "Polish Nobel". Currently she heads research conducted at Lodz University of Technology within the European Centre of Excellence TREX: Achieving Chemical Accuracy in Exascale Computing.
About the publication "Density Functional Theory. In pursuit of universality", which has just been published in Nature Reviews Chemistry, Prof. Katarzyna Pernal says
- Our paper presents the impressive development of methods in computational chemistry and physics that has been made possible by the emergence of universal electron density functions, the so-called DFT methods, in the last 15 years. DFT methods have become a routine computational tool used in quantum simulations in chemistry, physics or materials engineering. The use of this method makes it possible to predict the properties of molecules, leading to the design of new materials with desired properties.
"Nature Reviews Chemistry" is one of the Nature journals with a large reach and impact (impact factor over 35), publishing ground-breaking research papers.