Massimo Olivucci
Massimo Olivucci is professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Siena, Italy and Research Professor of Computational Chemistry at the Centre for Photochemical Sciences, Bowling Green State University, USA. Massimo took his PhD at the Università di Bologna (Italy) with Fernando Bernardi and carried out Postdoctoral research work at King’s College London (UK) with Michael A. Robb before accepting his first academic position in Bologna in 1991. He has authored over 290 research papers focusing on the investigation of organic and bio-organic reactivity using theoretical and computational methods. The most recent results are related to the investigation of light energy conversion in biological photoreceptors and the design of light-driven biomimetic molecular switches and motors. The programming and implementation of automated computational methods are also part of his work.
Massimo Olivucci has contributed to establish the expanding fields of computational photochemistry and photobiology. Early results helped to establish that the “transition states” driving photochemical reactions are structures called “conical intersections”. This discovery created a new branch of theoretical photochemistry and changed the way in which these processes can be understood and designed. It also contributed to rationalize the observations made in the field of transient spectroscopy that many photochemical reactions occur on ultrafast timescale. In the first decade of 2000, his research group shifted to photobiology and applied the new ideas of theoretical photochemistry to biomolecules. The central role played by conical intersections in determining the function of different biological chromophores and of the corresponding photoreceptors was demonstrated. These results included the description of the sub-picosecond photoisomerization of the mammal visual pigment rhodopsin at the nuclear and electronic levels.
Main honors: 2010 Gold Medal "Angelo Mangini" from the Italian Chemical Society, 2015 fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Université de Strasbourg, France, 2021 Doctoris Honoris Causa by the Université Aix-Marseille, France.
Abstracts this author is presenting: