Cauê Paula de Souza

Cauê is currently an EPSRC PhD Researcher at the University of Kent under the supervision of Dr Felipe Fantuzzi. His project theme is “Multi-scale investigation of photo-assisted chemical phenomena” and aims to investigate photochemical and photophysical events in different chemical systems from the atomic and single molecule scale to the macro scale by the application and implementation of a variety of state-of-the-art quantum mechanics (QM) and molecular mechanics (MM) computational methods and models. The goal is to gain insight about the physico-chemical aspects of systems of interest for photochemical catalysis, photo-assisted nanotechnological processes, and materials for visible light-harvesting devices, helping to tailor our future technologies.

Cauê has been awarded a first class BSc (84%) in Chemistry by the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil, in 2019. His final year project, under the supervision of Dr. Thiago Messias Cardozo, was entitled “Theoretical Study of the Electronic Properties of the DTS-TPD Dimer with Emphasis in the Ground and Singlet Exited states’ Potential Energy Surfaces as a Function of Three Torsion Angles”. This study investigated photophysical properties of a model molecule for light-harvesting applications by time-dependent Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT) and second-order Algebraic Diagrammatic Construction (ADC(2)) models.

Subsequently, he has also been awarded an MSc in Chemistry by the same university in 2022, within a CAPES scholarship, again under the supervision of Dr Thiago Messias Cardozo. His thesis title was “DABCO and Quinuclidine as HAT Catalysts in Direct Arylation and Alkylation of Aldehyde’s C–H Bonds via Photoredox Catalysis: A computational study”, which consisted on the DFT investigation of a Hydrogen Atom Transfer (HAT) step in a photocatalytic reaction developed by the MacMillan group (Princeton University) and modified by Dr Finelli’s group (UFRJ).

Even though Cauê embraced Computational Chemistry as his research area, he also gained experience in gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS), as well as various sample preparation techniques for ultra-micro analysis, during his one-and-a-half-year research assistant role at the Laboratório Brasileiro de Controle de Dopagem (LBCD)—the Brazilian doping control laboratory—from 2011 to 2012.

Cauê is a Brazilian, born in Nova Iguaçú, raised in Belford Roxo, in the Rio de Janeiro state. He is a reformed baptist christian and, apart from science, has interests in Literature, Theology and Photography. He already loves Canterbury for all the city has to offer in all these three aspects.

Photochemistry, Photophysics, Photocatalysis, Reaction Mechanism

Supervised by Dr Felipe Fantuzzi.