Maria Zdanovskaia

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5167-8573

Maria Zdanovskaia received a B.S. in Psychology and Certificate in Mathematics from UW – Madison, but decided to pursue physical organic chemistry in graduate school.  She has been studying the rotational spectroscopy of small aromatic heterocycles and substituted aromatic compounds.   She has employed organic syntheses, rotational spectroscopy, and computational chemistry to determine the precise equilibrium (r_e^SE) structures of 1H- and 2H-1,2,3,-triazoles, thiazole, and pyridine.  These precise equilibrium structures use the rotational constants of many isotopologues and coupled-cluster calculations to produce the most accurate molecular structures possible by current methods.

Additionally, Maria has analyzed the rotational spectra of benzonitrile and its isomer phenyl isocyanide, two compounds of astrochemical interest.  She has obtained least-squares fits of their two lowest energy vibrationally excited states, which form a Coriolis-coupled dyad.  These dyad fits allow for a highly precise determination of the vibrational energy difference due to the transitions involved in sharp resonances and nominally forbidden interstate transitions.  Using a sample of 2-cyano-1,3-butadiene prepared by Sam K., Maria has obtained the rotational spectrum of the ground state of this molecule.

Maria assisted in the measurement, assignment, and least-squares fitting 2-chloropyridine and 2-chloropyrazine.  Due to the many well-isolated vibrationally excited states accessible for these molecules, spectroscopic constants for over 20 vibrational states were obtained.  These works allowed for a comparison between the experimental and computational vibration-rotation interaction constants.

Maria is also engaged in developing materials for chemical education using computational molecular modeling, including a website generated for organic laboratories at collaborating community colleges that is free for use by all interested individuals.  She has worked with a couple of high school teachers to help implement the use of computational chemistry at the high school level.  When not doing chemistry, Maria enjoys dancing, jigsaw puzzles, various crafts, writing Excel macros, and instigating innocent mischief.

Maria received her PhD in 2022. She is a senior scientist in the Madison area and continues to work closely with the McMahon | Woods group.

Recent Publication:

Zdanovskaia, M. A.; Franke, P. R.; Esselman, B. J.; Billinghurst, B. E.; Zhao, J.; Stanton, J. F.; Woods, R. C.; McMahon, R. J.  Vibrationally Excited States of 1H- and 2H-1,2,3-Triazole Isotopologues Analyzed by Millimeter-wave and High-Resolution Infrared Spectroscopy with Approximate State-Specific Quartic Distortion Constants.  J. Chem. Phys. 2023, 158, 044301.  View Article