Prof Ivan Kassal

Ivan Kassal is a Professor of Chemical Physics and ARC Future Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. He graduated from Stanford University and completed his PhD at Harvard University in 2010. He is a theorist working at the intersection of quantum science, chemistry, biophysics, and materials science. He pioneered some of the first applications of quantum computers to chemistry, showing they could dramatically accelerate difficult chemical calculations. He has also unravelled ways that photosynthetic organisms use quantum effects to improve their light harvesting, and is using those lessons to better understand next-generation materials, especially organic solar cells. He is a recipient of DECRA, Westpac, and Future fellowships, of the Australian Academy of Science Le Fèvre Medal for “outstanding basic research in chemistry” and of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Physical Chemistry Lectureship for “outstanding early- and mid-career physical chemists”.