Lorenzo Di Bari

Lorenzo Di Bari received his BSc and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pisa and the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa). He spent a few years abroad, working with G. Bodenhausen (Lausanne, CH), J. Kowalewski and M.H. Levitt (Stockholm, SE), on NMR tools for conformational analysis of organic compounds. He returned to Pisa in 1992, where he started to work on Electronic Circular Dichroism, collaborating with P. Salvadori. In 1995, he was tenured at Pisa University, where he was appointed associate (2002) and full (2015) professor of Organic Chemistry. Since 2000 he’s been member of the Editorial Board of the Journal Chirality, since 2009 he is in the International Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Chiroptical Spectroscopies and since 2018 of the “Chirality”(formerly ISCD) symposia . He has co-authored over 140 papers and review articles in international journals, and several book chapters. Since 2018 he’s head of the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry of the University of Pisa.
He is mainly interested in the stereochemistry of complex systems, like flexible molecules existing as conformational manifolds, supramolecular systems, fluxional coordination compounds. His most recent activity focuses on chiral molecules for organic optoelectronic devices.
He enjoys collaborating with people in Italy and abroad. In the last 10 years, he supervised MSc (> 20) and PhD (12) theses and most of his former group members are now developing their independent academic careers worldwide.
His fields of expertise include:
• Electronic and Vibrational Circular Dichroism (ECD, VCD): theory and applications to organic molecules, coordination compounds, aggregated and supramolecular systems, biopolymers
• Determination of absolute and relative configurations of natural and synthetic products
• NMR of organic molecules and inorganic complexes, including paramagnetic NMR, to determine structural and dynamical parameters (conformations, relative configurations, isomerization rates, diffusion coefficients)
• Chirality in conducting polymers for optoelectronic devices
• Development of materials endowed with high circularly polarized luminescence
• Drug/protein interactions (through ECD and NMR)
• Organic synthesis of chiral ligands/monomers and of their metal complexes