Researcher

ORCID iD: orcid.org/0000-0003-0848-2908
ResearcherID: O-2324-2014
Phone: +39-050-2219204
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Curriculum Vitae
2019-Present: Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry (Ricercatore a Tempo Determinato “Tipo A”), Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa.
2018-2019: Postdoc at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), in the Molecular Modeling and Bioinformatics group of Prof. Modesto Orozco.
2016-2018: Postdoc, Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, with Prof. Benedetta Mennucci
2016: PhD in Chemistry and Material Science, Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa. Advisor: Prof. Benedetta Mennucci
PhD Thesis: “The interplay between electronic coupling and vibrational motion in Charge and Energy Transfer”
2013: Diploma in Chemistry, Scuola Normale Superiore
2013: M. Sc. Chemistry, Università di Pisa
2011: B. Sc. Chemistry, Università di Pisa

Short Biography
Lorenzo Cupellini received his PhD in Chemistry and Material Science in 2016 from the University of Pisa, under the supervision of Professor Benedetta Mennucci. After a postdoctoral position at the University of Pisa, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona, in Prof. Modesto Orozco’s group. He is currently a researcher at the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry of the University of Pisa.
His main scientific interests include:
• Simulations of complex processes occurring in biomolecular systems, including nonequilibrium and light-induced processes.
• First-principles description of electronic properties in supramolecular (bio)systems, focusing on the prediction of absorption and circular dichroism spectra
• Development of methods to simulate excitation energy transfer dynamics, charge-transfer, and quenching in supramolecular (bio)systems
• Investigation of complex conformational changes occurring in biopolymers and protein complexes through enhanced sampling molecular dynamics techniques.
He has authored or co-authored more than 30 scientific papers.
In 2020, he was awarded the “Eolo Scrocco” Prize of the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry division of the Italian Chemical Society for young researchers in Theoretical chemistry.

Selected Publications
1. L. Cupellini*, D. Calvani, D. Jacquemin, and B. Mennucci*. “Charge transfer from the carotenoid can quench chlorophyll excitation in antenna complexes of plants.” Nat Commun, 2020, 11, 662. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14488-6
2. M. Bondanza, L. Cupellini, F. Lipparini, and B. Mennucci*. “The Multiple Roles of the Protein in the Photoactivation of Orange Carotenoid Protein.” Chem, 2020, 6, 187–203. DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2019.10.014
3. D. Loco* and L. Cupellini. “Modeling the absorption lineshape of embedded systems from molecular dynamics: A tutorial review.” Int J Quantum Chem, 2019, 119, e25726. DOI: 10.1002/qua.25726
4. L. Cupellini*, S. Caprasecca, C. A. Guido, F. Müh, T. Renger, and B. Mennucci. “Coupling to charge transfer states is the key to modulate the optical bands for efficient light harvesting in purple bacteria.” J Phys Chem Lett, 2018, 9, 6892–6899. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b03233
5. L. Cupellini*, S. Jurinovich*, M. Campetella, S. Caprasecca, C. A. Guido, S. M. Kelly, A. T. Gardiner, R. Cogdell, and B. Mennucci*. “An Ab Initio Description of the Excitonic Properties of LH2 and Their Temperature Dependence.” J Phys Chem B, 2016, 120, 11348–11359. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.6b06585