About me

I was born in Gdańsk in 1969. I am a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Gdańsk, where I head the Department of Theoretical Chemistry and the Laboratory of Quantum Chemistry. Since 2006, I have also held the position of Professor of Chemistry at the Henry Eyring Center for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, USA.

My research concerns the electronic structure of molecular anions bound by non-valence interactions. I designed various novel monoanions and dianions held together by dipole, bi-dipole and mixed valence–dipole potential, established the critical conditions for binding two electrons by a fixed finite dipole, and modelled Coulomb barriers in multiply charged anions. I also proposed the possible existence of carbonless analogues of biologically important molecules (including nucleobases, DNA fragments, amino acids, and peptides), describing their structures, stability, and properties. In addition, I proposed mechanisms for DNA damage caused by low-energy electrons and designed novel molecular systems – superhalogens, Lewis–Brønsted superacids, various strong oxidizing agents, and stable synthons.

I graduated in chemistry from the University of Gdańsk in 1993, first in my class (my MSc thesis was supervised by Prof. Wiesław Wiczk), and received my PhD in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Maciej Gutowski. I obtained my habilitation in 2001, and in 2005 the President of the Republic of Poland conferred on me the title of Professor of Chemical Sciences. My research stays have included the University of Warsaw, the Quantum Theory Project (Florida, USA) and – repeatedly – the University of Utah, where I was appointed Associate Professor of Chemistry in 2001 and Professor of Chemistry in 2006. I served two terms as a Senator of the University of Gdańsk and was a member of the Committee on Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 2011 to 2016.