Dr. Irina Paci is a professor of chemistry at the University of Victoria. She grew up and completed her BSc in Chemistry in Iasi, Romania. She moved to Queen's University in Kingston, ON for her PhD studies on the use of integral equation theories, a mean-field approach for studying local structure in liquids. After a 3-year postdoc at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, USA, developing methods for computational studies of nanostructured materials, she moved to Victoria in 2007. Her teaching and research interests are in the area of physical and theoretical chemistry. Specific courses include introductory physical chemistry, quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics and computational chemistry. Dr. Paci’s research group develops and uses multi-scale theoretical and computational methods to understand fundamental aspects of the self-assembly of molecular materials and to investigate their properties. In the quantum field, Dr. Paci's group works to understand how quantum computers can be used, in hybrid simulations, to more accurately compute competing mechanisms in chemical reactions.