Prof. Piero Macchi

Education

Ms.Sc. (1994): laurea summa cum laude, University of Milan with a thesis on applications of Extended Huckel calculations for predicting site preferences in metal carbonyl clusters
PhD (1999): University of Milan with a thesis on Electron Density Studies and Low Temperature Crystallography of Organometallic Compounds (supervisor: Prof. A. Sironi)
Habilitation (2009): Venia docendi in Chemical Crystallography, University of Bern, defending a thesis on Structural Investigations on soft Bonds

Prefessional Career

1998-1999: Technical Assistant at Structural Chemistry Department, University of Milan.
1999-2000: Adjunkt (temporary position) at University of Aarhus (Department of Chemistry), member of prof. F. K. Larsen’s research group.
2002-2008: Researcher and Aggregate professor (permanent position) at Structural Chemistry Department, University of Milan.
2009-2019: Associate Professor (permanent position) and Group leader of the Chemical Crystallography Research Group at Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern
2012: selected for associate professorship in Inorganic Chemistry, University of Rome, declined.
2018-2022: Associate Professor of Principles of Chemistry for Technologies, Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano.
2020-:Associated researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology, Center for Nano Science and technology, CNST@polimi.
2022-:Full Professor of Principles of Chemistry for Technologies, Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano.

Research Areas

Quantum crystallography
High pressure crystallography
Quantum chemical simulations of crystalline organic and metallorganic materials

Current Group Members

Roles in Scientific Societies

2009-2014: Board member and Treasurer (2009-2011) of the Italian Crystallographic Association
2011-2018: Treasurer (2011-2015), Vice-President (2012-2015) and President (2015-2018) of the Swiss Crystallographic Association
2011-2014: Chair of the Charge Spin and momentum density special interest group (SIG2), the European Crystallographic Association (ECA)
2011-2017: Member and chair (2014-2017) of the Commission for Charge Spin and Momentum Density (now quantum crystallography), the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr)
2017-: co-editor of Acta Crystallographica B

Publications records

more than 160 papers and book chapters (including 2 Nature Comm.; 10 JACS, 7 Angew. Chem.; 9 Chem Comm.; 5 Chemistry; 1 PRL);
Editor of Modern Charge Density Analysis (2012)
Author of Quantum crystallography:expectations vs. reality (2022) and Quantum crystallography:fundamentals and applications (in preparation)
more than 70 lectures at conferences, schools and workshops
more than 10 conferences and schools organized (including two Gordon Conferences on Electron Distribution and Chemical Bonding; one Erice School of Crystallography; one European Crystallographic Meeting; two “Advanced X-ray diffraction methods” workshops; one Swiss Crystallographic Meeting; Two Spring meetings of the Swiss Computational Chemistry Society; The first “R. F. Stewart Charge Density School”, one European Charge Density Meeting)

Awards

1990 and 1992: Student Grant from Istituto Donegani (Montedison)
1991: Student Grant from Enichem
1993: Student Grant from Nobile Istituto Caccia (Novara)
2002: Italian Crystallographic Association prize for young researchers
2007: Elected chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Electron distribution and Chemical bonding
2020: Included in the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University
2024: Alajos Kálmán Prize of the European Crystallographic Association

Fundraising

2023-2025: PI and local coordinator of PRIN project NEMESIS
2023-2025: PI and national coordinator of PRIN-PNRR project PR-CO2
2023-2025 PI of Innovation Grant (National Center HPC-Quantum Computing) on “MOLECULAR ENERGY LANDSCAPE BY QUANTUM COMPUTING”
2009-2020: 8 projects as principal investigator and 1 as project-partner, Swiss National Science Foundation ( > 1’800’000 CHF): http://p3.snf.ch/person-554185-Macchi-Piero
2018-2020: 1 project as co-applicant and project leader of the Swiss National Center for Competence in Research MARVEL: Materials’ Revolution: Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials (overall funding of the center > 18’000’000 CHF) http://p3.snf.ch/Project-182892
2017-2020: 1 project as project partner, Swiss National Science Foundation http://p3.snf.ch/Project-172532
2009-2012: 1 project as co-investigator, Paul Scherrer Institute (105’000 CHF)
2010-2012: 1 project as principal investigator, Swiss Conference of Rectors ( 110’000 CHF)
2000-2008: 6 projects as investigator, Italian Ministry of Research (3 FIRBs, 3 PRIN)

Software author

XD – A Computer program package for multipole refinement and Topological Analysis of charge densities from diffraction data
PolaBer A program to compute distributed atomic polarizabilities