D.Sc. Maria Sammalkorpi, a principal investigator and team leader in the LIBER Center of Excellence, has been appointed as tenured Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Aalto University, as of 1 December 2023. The field of the professorship is Soft Matter Modelling.
Sammalkorpi received her doctorate from Helsinki University of Technology 2004. After her defence, she has worked as a researcher at the Universities of Princeton, Yale and Aalto University. Prior to the professorship appointment, Maria has worked as Senior Scientist and leader of Soft Materials Modelling group at Aalto University. She received the Novo Nordisk Ascending Investigator award in 2022 for computational biosynthetic materials research. Her research is funded by major grants from the Research Council of Finland, Novo Nordisk Foundation, and Business Finland. She has also actively collaborated with industry, receiving corporate funding from multiple companies to her research.