Chemical Success

The Italian Chemical Society has recently awarded its “Giuseppe Del Re” prize to Marta Monti, a postdoctoral fellow in ICTP’s Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics section. The annual award, which is given for the best PhD thesis in theoretical and  computational chemistry, recognizes Monti's doctoral work carried out under the supervision of Mauro Stener, a professor at the University of Trieste, partly in collaboration with Ali Hassanali, ICTP Senior Research Scientist, and successfully defended in 2024.

The citation reads, “for implementing a computational protocol for accurate and cost-effective calculations of electronic circular dichroism of complex systems, particularly relevant in the biomedical and optoelectronic fields.”

The computational protocols developed by Monti in her PhD are designed for the study of chirality. Chiral molecules cannot be superimposed on their mirror image, similarly to how our left hand cannot be superimposed on our right hand, a property that plays an important role in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine, for example in disease detection and drug design.

The award ceremony took place during the European Conference in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry 2025, held in Naples from 15 to 18 September 2025, where Monti also presented her PhD work.

“I am incredibly honored to receive this award from the Italian Chemical Society,” said Monti, adding, “My PhD project gave me the opportunity to explore the fascinating world of chiral systems, to learn and apply diverse techniques ranging from molecular dynamics to quantum chemistry methods, and above all, to collaborate with many wonderful people. I am deeply grateful to each of them! I would like to especially acknowledge my PhD supervisor, Professor Mauro Stener, a true mentor to me, as well as Ali Hassanali, with whom I began collaborating during my PhD and continued to work with during my first postdoctoral experience here at ICTP.”