Kimberly Daas

Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow
NS II 2145
(805) 791-8587

About me

Kimberly Daas is working in the field of theoretical chemistry, which is on the intersection between chemistry, physics, mathematics and even computer science. Her research interests are increasing our current understanding of electronic structure theory and in particular Density Functional Theory, the workhorse of quantum chemistry, and deriving new practical approximations for it. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees as a Joint Degree at both the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), respectively in Chemistry (2017) and Molecular Sciences (2019). The research for both theses was done in the group of Prof. Dr. Gori-Giorgi at the VU, which is also the group she did her PhD research in. In her dissertation, The Strong Interaction Limit of The Moller- Plesset Adiabatic Connection, she not only derived a new exact theory but also provided accurate practical approximations for it. Using these results, she derived new functionals that can be used in both chemistry and material science to calculate non-covalent interactions, which are generally weak interaction that play important roles in (bio)-chemistry by keeping our DNA double helices together and enabling enzymatic reactions. Her work has been supported by the University Research Fellowship and the Dutch Organization for Scientific research (NWO). She was also awarded the Dutch Young Talent Encouragement Award by the Royal Dutch Society for Sciences (KHMW). During her PhD, she supervised three bachelor students all of which finished successfully and resulted into publications. In addition to her scholarship, Kimberly Daas will try to help early-career LGBTQ+ and especially trans students and scholars navigate academia and especially in the traditionally male dominated field of theoretical chemistry.

Publications with Kieron