Dr Danica Pinto
Lecturer in Physical Chemistry
Biography
Dr Danica Pinto completed her MSc in Chemistry (2012) from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) Surathkal, Mangalore, India. During her MSc, she also worked under the guidance of Prof. T. Pradeep at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), Chennai for her Summer Internship Programme. She then worked as a Lecturer in Chemistry (2012 – 2013) at St Agnes College, Centre for Postgraduate Studies and Research, Mangalore, India. She later moved to the UK and conducted her PhD studies in Chemistry at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland under the guidance of Dr N Hendrik Nahler. In June 2020, she was awarded a PhD for a thesis on “Cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy with a deep UV-LED”. Danica joined the faculty of the School of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews in February 2021 as an Associate Lecturer (Education Focused) in Physical Chemistry.
Teaching
Danica contributes to teaching at both sub-honours and honours levels. She lectures and tutors in the modules CH1401 Introductory Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (8 lectures) and CH1402 Introductory Inorganic and Physical Chemistry 1 (5 lectures). She is a tutor for modules CH2701 Physical Chemistry 2 and Integrating Chemistry module CH4461/ CH5461. She also demonstrates and contributes to the second and third year Physical Chemistry Laboratory courses CH2701 and CH3721. She supervises Chemistry Education (fourth and fifth year) honours research projects and is also involved with the Scientific Writing module CH4431. She also co-convenes the module CH1301 The Impact of Chemistry.
In addition to teaching, Danica is an Undergraduate and Staff Wellbeing Officer in the School of Chemistry. She is also involved in outreach activities with the School of Chemistry and the RSC Tayside Local Section.