Google Scholar | Orcid | Bluesky | Twitter | LinkedIn

Bess Vlaisavljevich is from St. Paul, Minnesota. She received her B.A. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota Morris in 2007. She then received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees working with Prof. Laura Gagliardi from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Her PhD work focused on studying the electronic structure of the f-elements with multiconfigurational methods. Following this, she worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Berkeley with Prof. Berend Smit using molecular simulation and density functional theory to study gas separations and adsorption in nanoporous materials. Later, at Northwestern University with Prof. Toru Shiozaki, she was involved in developing the (X)MS-CASPT2 analytical gradient code in the program package BAGEL. In 2017, she began her independent career at the University of South Dakota. Her research focuses on using multireference quantum chemistry theories for a variety of problems in transition metal and actinide chemistry. She was recently awarded a Department of Energy Early Career Awards and USD’s Early/Mid-Career President’s research award for her efforts. In 2023, she was awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. In 2024, she moved to the University of Iowa to continue her work. 

Previous Appointments

• Associate Professor (2023–2024)
  Department of Chemistry, University of South Dakota.
• Assistant Professor (2017–2023)
  Department of Chemistry, University of South Dakota.
• Postdoctoral Fellow (2015–2017), Shiozaki Group,
  Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University.
• Postdoctoral Fellow (2013–2015), Smit Group,
  Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley.