Professor Nancy Makri received her B.S. from the University of Athens in 1985 and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. She spent two years as a Junior Fellow at Harvard before joining the faculty at Illinois in the spring of 1992. Her research interests are in theoretical quantum dynamics.
Research Interests and Description: Theoretical quantum dynamics of condensed phase processes, with applications to tunneling and coherence phenomena, proton and electron transfer reactions in solution and biological systems, and excitation energy transfer in molecular aggregates. The central goal of our research is to advance the theoretical understanding of quantum mechanical processes in large molecules and the condensed phase. Unless severe approximations are introduced, direct solution of the Schrödinger equation is feasible only for relatively small molecules, as it requires computational effort that increases exponentially with the number of particles. We develop new theoretical descriptions and simulation methods based on the real-time path integral formulation of quantum dynamics and apply them to investigate tunneling and coherence phenomena, proton and electron transfer reactions in solution and biological systems, and energy transfer in molecular aggregates.