Julia Weinstein

Biography

Julia Weinstein is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, the University of Sheffield. Julia obtained her Diploma in Chemistry (with honours) from Moscow Lomonosov State University in 1990, followed by a PhD from the same institution in 1994, under supervision of Professor M Kuzmin and Professor N Sadovskii, on "The role of exciplexes in the mechanism of electron transfer in Marcus's kinetic region". She has been a member of the academic staff at the MSU since 1994.

In 2000, she became a Royal Society/NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Nottingham, which was followed by a temporary lectureship at the same institution. She was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship in 2004 on "Light-Switchable Molecular Devices". She joined the Department in Sheffield in 2005.

Julia's interests are in light-induced reactions, from fundamental ultrafast processes to applications of photoactive molecules in photocatalysis, photodynamic therapies, and antibacterial treatments. Her group applies diverse ultrafast laser spectroscopy methods electronic (absorption, emission, fluorescence upconversion) and vibrational spectroscopy (time-resolved infrared, TRIR, and Raman) to understanding ultrafast charge, spin, and structural dynamics in the condensed phase, with particular focus on the role of vibronic coupling and optical control of charge transfer.

More recent interests include time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy and XFEL. She is currently a member of the science team for the UK XFEL project. Julia has a long-standing collaboration with the Central Laser Facility of the STFC.

She has the Lomonosov Award in Science (2003), John Van Geuns Lecture (2004), and the RSC Chemical Dynamics Award (2017).

RSC affiliations

• Advisory board, Chemical Science