Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology – Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering

Hometown: St. Petersburg, Russia

Hobbies/Interests Outside of Work: Being outdoors, hiking, riding a bicycle and a motorcycle

Research Area/Focus Area (as it relates to the MSEE URA): Research Area 3 / Focus Area 2: Chemistry in Extreme Environments / High Temperature Properties and Chemistry of Agents and Simulants

How does the MSEE URA and its collaborative nature benefit you?
Interacting with researchers from other universities is always an excellent learning opportunity. When I found out about MSEE URA I was absolutely impressed with the breadth of the disciplines and research interests of the consortium members. I am looking forward to an opportunity to collaborate with chemists, physicists, engineers, materials scientists of MSEE URA.

How will the MSEE URA will be improved through your involvement?
My main tool is classical molecular simulations (molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo) with focus on fluids and solid-fluid interfaces. Molecular simulations can be often used as an alternative to real experiments, especially if experiments must be carried out at extreme conditions, such as high pressure or temperature, or the chemicals of interest are toxic. I believe my tool is a perfect match for the problems of the MSEE URA. Among the chemicals directly relevant to the interests of consortium, I worked on parameterization of models for molecular simulation of organophosphorus compounds, and prediction their thermodynamic and transport properties.

Describe your plans for collaboration within and external to the URA.
I have recently started collaborating with my colleague Ed Dreizin and the URA Seed Grant will certainly help to extend this collaboration further. Previously, I have been collaborating with many experimentalists, as well as computational researchers working on continuum and atomistic scales. Therefore, I foresee potential collaborations with a number of groups within the “Material Properties and Failure”, “Materials and Manufacturing for Synergistic Effects” and “Chemistry in Extreme Environments” research areas, such as the groups of Michael Zachariah, Bryan Wong, Suresh Menon, Raj Sinha to name a few.