Arteca G

Biography

Dr. G. Arteca did his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the National University of La Plata, Argentina (UNLP, 1976-1985). He obtained his PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1985, working at the Institute for Applied and Theoretical Physical Chemistry (INIFTA-UNLP), under the direction of Profs. E.A. Castro and F.M. Fernández, and partly at the Balseiro Institute (Bariloche, Southern Argentina) with Prof. C. Solivérez, in various areas of Mathematical Physics and Quantum Mechanics. In 1986, he continued his post-doctoral studies at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada) with Prof. P.G. Mezey, doing research in the fields of Quantum Chemistry, Chemical Topology, and Computational Molecular Design. Between 1986-1992, Dr. Arteca worked as a Professional Research Associate and Sessional Lecturer at the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry (University of Saskatchewan), as well as lecturer at a NATO Summer School of Theoretical Chemistry (Portugal, 1990). Dr. Arteca joined the faculty at Laurentian University in August 1992, where he does research in the field of theoretical physical chemistry. His teaching responsabilities include graduate and undergradute courses in physical chemistry, both in French and English. He maintains research collaborations with Profs. C. Elvingson and O. Tapia, from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, where he spent the sabbatical year 1998/99, as well as the half-sabbatical leaves 2002/3, 2007, and 2011. Dr. Arteca is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada (FCIC, 2002), having served as Vice-chairman (2000-2003) and Chairman (2003-2006) of the Physical/Theoretical Division. Dr. Arteca was awarded the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Biophysical Computational Chemistry (2001/08) and worked at the Grant Selection Committee 26 (Physical/Analytical Chemistry) of NSERC (2006/08)). Dr. Arteca is fully fluent in various languages, including English, French, Spanish, Catalan, and Swedish.

Research Interest

(1) mathematical physics of strongly-perturbed chemical systems, (2) quantum topology of potential energy surfaces and electron densities, (3) molecular shape transitions along reaction paths, (4) quantum mechanics of electronic states coupled in external fields, and (5) convergence and analytical continuation of virial series near phase transitions. In the case of large systems, my work includes: (6) quantum theory of molecular similarity, (7) topology and differential geometry of polymer chains, (8) mathematical modeling and analysis of configurational transitions in diluted polymer solutions, (9) protein folding dynamics and size-scaling behaviour in protein native states, (10) statistical properties of protein primary sequences, and (11) modeling the dynamics of topologically constrained macromolecules, including the compressive behaviour of grafted polymers and transient polymer knotting.