Maksym Kovalenko

Maksym Kovalenko studied Chemistry at the Chernivtsi National University, Ukraine. He pursued his PhD at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria in 2007. Subsequently, he joined the University of Chicago as a postdoc researcher where he stayed until joining ETH Zurich in 2011 as a tenure-track assistant professor. He became an associate professor in January 2017 and since August 2020 he is a full professor of Functional Inorganic Materials at the Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry. The research activities of Maksym Kovalenko and his group focus on chemistry, physics and applications of inorganic solid-state materials and nanostructures. In particular, present research efforts concern: (i) the precision synthesis of highly luminescent semiconductor nanocrystals; (ii) nanocrystal surface chemistry; (iii) exploration of novel semiconductor materials by solution-​ and solid-state synthesis; (iv) novel semiconductors for hard radiation detection; (iv) novel materials and concepts for Li-ion and post-​Li-ion rechargeable batteries. Many of these activities are strongly linked to industrial partners. Academic collaborations involve various groups ranging from the first-principles theory of materials to applications in photovoltaics and thermoelectrics.

M. V. Kovalenko serves as an Associate Editor of Chemistry of Materials and as the Chair of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (2018-​2019). Prof. Kovalenko, born in 1982, grew up in Ukraine (Bukovina region). Some activities of the KovalenkoLab, related to batteries and light-emitting devices, are conducted at a sister ETH institution – Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology).