Director

Director
dr hab. Piotr Żuchowski, prof. UMK
phone number: +48 56 611 3337
e-mail: pzuch@fizyka.umk.pl

Piotr Żuchowski – he defended PhD thesis in 2007 at the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw. In 2007 he started his post as Research Associate at the Durham University, and in 2010 he moved to the University of Nottingham where he worked for one year as Research Fellow.
He has been working at Nicolaus Copernicus University since 2011, first – as the assistant professor, and from 2017 as an associate professor. Recipient of the Homing Plus scholarship (FNP), Principal Investigator of several grants from the National Science Center, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. In 2012, he was awarded a Scholarship for Outstanding Young Scientists, and in 2020 the Minister of Science and Higher Education Award for significant scientific achievement. He is a co-author of over 60 scientific publications, including in the most prestigious physical and chemical journals, such as Nature Chemistry, Nature Physics or Physical Review Letters. He supervised one doctorate and currently is an advisor of 3 more PhD students. He also supervised three postdoctoral fellows. In 2020, he joined the Committee of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (as elected fellow).
The main scientific topic of Prof. Żuchowski deals with intermolecular interactions theory, both the development of new theoretical methods and their applications. He is particularly interested in very accurate calculations of the potential energy surface for small molecular systems. Also, for several years he has been interested in physics and chemistry at ultra-low temperatures and the reactivity of ultracold atoms and molecules, and how to control collisions in such exotic conditions.