MSU University Distinguished Professor of chemistry and adjunct professor of physics and astronomy Piotr Piecuch has been elected a Distinguished Fellow of the Kosciuszko Foundation Collegium of Eminent Scientists, which honors scholars of Polish origin and ancestry who have achieved recognition in the United States.
Piecuch’s research, described in about 200 publications to date, focuses on the development of ab initio quantum theory of molecular electronic structure and other many-body systems, and applications of the resulting computational approaches to spectroscopy, chemical reaction mechanisms and dynamics, catalysis, photochemistry, intermolecular interactions and atomic nuclei.
“I am truly honored by this recognition, which is particularly special to me, since I was born and educated in Poland,” Piecuch said. “I am grateful to the Kosciuszko Foundation for including me in such a high profile list of scholars of Polish origin and ancestry.”
Piecuch has held visiting professor positions from Japan to Portugal and has received numerous national and international honors, including being a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and election to the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Humanities. Piecuch has given 190 lectures at national and international symposia and at academic and research institutions around the world, co-edited six books and two special journal issues, and has served on many scientific committees, review panels and advisory boards.
Piecuch joins an impressive group of Kosciuszko Eminent Scientists that includes four Nobel laureates as well as MSU professors Robert Bandurski, Richard Lenski and Timothy Zacharewski.
“It is gratifying to see our colleague and friend deservedly placed in the company of not only eminent theoreticians, but of scholars from the entire constellation of scientific endeavor,” said Robert Maleczka, chair of the MSU Department of Chemistry. “Piotr is widely admired for his work as evidenced by this recognition and numerous other accolades, and is a testament to the caliber of chemists at MSU.”