New postdoc Victoria Nikitina joined the CEE CREI.
Victoria received her Master’s degree from Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) in 2010 where she also defended a Candidate of Science degree in 2013. During her postgraduate studies Victoria specialized in molecular level description of heterogeneous electron transfer in different ionic and molecular media. Prof. Galina Tsirlina, MSU, and Prof. Renat Nazmutdinov, Kazan Technological University, supervised her research. Victoria developed an approach for the prediction of the rate constant values for simple one-electron heterogeneous electron transfer reactions in molecular and ionic liquids in the framework of modern quantum-mechanical theory of electron transfer in polar solvents.
She took part in multidisciplinary collaborations with Prof. R. Buchner, Regensburg University, as a DAAD scholarship holder and Prof. Th. Wandlowski, Bern University, as an exchange Ph.D. student. At that time she focused her research on the investigation of dielectric behavior of solutions of inorganic solutes in room-temperature ionic liquids and electron transfer through alkanethiol monolayers on gold in ionic liquids. In 2014, Victoria started working at MSU on the intercalation of alkali metals into iron selenides and tellurides to explore the dependence of superconductive behavior on the amount of intercalated cations.
At Skoltech, Victoria will undertake a detailed study of electrochemical reactions of lithium- & sodium ion battery materials and electrolytes. She will also conduct studies to understand how electrolyte formulation impacts the energetics and kinetics of ion-coupled electron transfer reactions and SEI formation mechanisms at electrode/electrolyte interfaces.