Our Team

Lucas (Luuk) Visscher obtained his PhD in 1993 for work on treating electron correlation and relativity simultaneously. This topic is still close to his heart, but he also enjoys working on subsystem electronic structure methods and on making quantum chemistry work on quantum computers. Method applications span a wide range of topics, a general motive is the study of electronically excited states in technologically relevant applications.

ORCID: 0000-0002-7748-6243
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After completing his PhD with Luuk at the VU Amsterdam in 2022, Arno joined the Visscher group in 2023 as an assistant professor of computational spectroscopy. His research focuses on the development of Green's function-based methods - in particular the GW-Bethe-Salpeter equation approach and extensions through vertex corrections - for the accurate and efficient description of excited states, and their application in photochemistry and surface chemistry. 

Research areas: Many-body Perturbation Theory, Quantum Embedding and Computing

ORCID: 0000-0002-0957-4081
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Ansgar did their PhD with Wim Klopper at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in 2022, and joined the Visscher group in 2024 as a postdoctoral researcher. Their research is focused on the quantum-chemical description of molecules in environments (magnetic fields, high pressure, solvation effects) as well as advancements in the field of relativistic quantum chemistry.

Research areas: Relativistic Quantum Chemistry, Optical and Vibrational Spectroscopy 

ORCID: 0000-0003-1895-2037
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Souloke completed his PhD in Luuks group working on subsystem DFT and embedding methods in quantum chemistry with applications to light harvesting complexes. He is currently working in collaboration with colleagues from Microsoft on machine learning 1RDMFT functionals.

Research area: Quantum Embedding and Computing 

ORCID: 0000-0001-8835-4660
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In 2022, Chima carried out his master's project with Luuk, where he worked on first-order properties for Kramers-unrestricted coupled-cluster (in DIRAC). Meanwhile, he stays in the group for his PhD project (2022-2026), where he extends the calculation of spin-orbit split excitations to general open-shell systems (in ADF) to model OLED molecules.

Research area: Optical and Vibrational Spectroscopy 

ORCID: 0009-0008-3007-4808
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Dario joined the group in 2023 as a PhD student under Luuk's supervision. His research focuses on machine learning based acceleration of quantum chemical calculations, including Neural Network potentials, Kernel Ridge Regression corrections, and the development of large datasets. He holds a Master's degree in Chemistry with a specialization in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry.

Research areas: Many-body Perturbation Theory, Optical and Vibrational Spectroscopy 

ORCID: 0000-0001-8835-4660
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Mariia received her MS in 2020 from Saint Petersburg state university in Russia. Before joining the group in 2023 Mariia was working on quantum algorithm development for quantum chemistry. Mariia’s research in the group is focused on spectroscopy of chiral molecules, especially complexes with transition metals.

Research areas: Quantum Embedding and Computing, Optical and Vibrational Spectroscopy 

ORCID: 0000-0002-0073-3859
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After completing my backelor's and master's degrees in India, I joined Luuks group to pursue my PhD. My research focuses on developing quantum embedding methods to understand quantum chemical systems. In particular, I explore how quantum computing algorithms can be leveraged to improve these methods.

Research areas: Quantum Embedding and Computing, Many-Body Perturbation theory 

Ganna received her B.Sc. in chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, Germany where she proceeded to study physical and theoretical chemistry and obtained her Master’s degree in 2023. She joined team in May 2024 as an external PhD student in collaboration with BMW Group working on modelling degradation processes in Li-ion cells by quantum chemistry and quantum computing methods. 

Research area: Quantum Embedding and Computing 

Erik completed his master's degree at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Vrije Universiteit (VU) in 2025, completing his master's research project with Arno.  He then joined the group as a PhD student, focusing on automating active space selection. His work involves using RPA natural orbitals, calculated within the GW framework.

Research area: Quantum Embedding and Computing 

Nicolas completed a Master in (condensed matter) Physics at the University of Strasbourg in 2021. He then joined the VU Amsterdam for a PhD under the supervision of Klaas Giesbertz to develop method for electronic structure theory. His work is primarily focused on the self-consistent procedure in Reduced Density Matrix Functional Theory.

Research area: Reduced Density Matrix functional Theory

ORICD: 0009-0006-7691-4513 

Sarina studied Mathematics and Chemistry at the University of Zurich. In 2021 she started her PhD under the supervision of Klaas Giesbertz. Her research interest lies in the mathematical description of DFT and RDMFT, mainly the v-representability problem. 

Research area: Reduced Density Matrix functional Theory

ORCID: 0009-0008-2645-3899 

Giulio Benedini completed his master at Politecnico di Milano in Materials Engineering and Nanotecnology in 2021 and is PhD candidate working on machine learning inter-atomic potentials (MLIP) applied to vibrational spectra. He has worked on various MLIP architectures and on active learning techniques for constructing datasets automatically. He likes playing basketball and board games (especially Catan).

Research area: Optical and Vibrational Spectroscopy 

Roeland is a Master's student conducting his thesis with Luuk. His task is the implementation of Coupled Cluster routines in the Amsterdam modelling suite using automatic code generation for efficient treatment of the tensor contractions involved with this method.

Research area: Quantum Embedding and Computing 

Mike is a (theoretical) physics master student conducting his master thesis with Arno. He implements of the Multi-Channel Dyson Equation for many-body Green's functions into the periodic electronic structure code BAND, to describe satellites in photo-absorption and photo-emission spectra for solids.

Research area: Many-Body Perturbation Theory