Yuliya (Iuliia) Gordiyenko

Alumni Resnick Second-Year Graduate Research Fellow

Yuliya was a Resnick fellow while a graduate student in chemistry. She graduated with an honours BSc in chemistry from McGill University, Canada in 2016, and did her undergraduate research in Prof. Mark Andrews' group. While at McGill, Yuliya served as VP of Finance for the Green Chemistry Student Association. She joined Garnet Chan's group at Caltech in December of 2016, to explore research motivated by the need for high-accuracy, low-scaling computational methods, which would be able to accurately treat "dark" excited electronic states in large correlated systems, such as the Light Harvesting Complexes (LHCs), involved in photosynthesis. The light-dependent steps of photosynthesis are among the most efficient energy transfer processes known in Nature, yet little is known about their mechanism. Yuliya's research worked toward the elucidation and precise modeling of the full electronic dynamics of the molecules involved in this process. Specifically, she worked on extending the utility of the Density Matrix Embedding theory framework and using local correlation techniques, towards results that could impact energy-conversion applications, and provide a deeper understanding of fundamental processes.

RSI Research: Uncovering the Initial Steps of Photosynthesis: Development of Quantum Mechanical Methodology to Treat Dark Excited States

Faculty Adviser: Garnet K. Chan