Chemistry

Biographical Info

Dr. Miranda Quintana completed his major in Radiochemistry (Nuclear Chemistry), at the Higher Institute of Technologies and Nuclear Science. Since then, he started working on computational/theoretical chemistry, mainly in the areas of molecular interactions, crystal structure prediction, and molecular similarity. After completing his B.Sc. he became interested in density functional theory (DFT) and density matrices, a topic in which he worked during his Ph.D., under the supervision of Prof. Paul Ayers (McMaster University) and Prof. Luis Montero (University of Havana). He focused on the study of charge transfer and spin transfer, creating new tools to understand different types of chemical reactions. During this time he also started working on the development of new wavefunction forms suitable to study strongly correlated systems. He pursued this line of research at York University, while he was a postdoc in the group of Prof. Rene Fournier. Dr. Miranda Quintana started as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at UF in the spring term of 2020. Here will develop, implement, and test new methods suitable to study the electronic structure of novel compounds. This will allow us to rationally design new catalysts, materials, and molecular devices with desired features.

Awards:

• Gold medal, Ibero-American Chemistry Olympiad, 2005
• York Science Fellowship, 2018
• Polanyi Prize, Chemistry, 2019