Assistant Prof. Renana Gershoni Poranne
Faculty:
Chemistry
Main energy field:
Design of new functional polycyclic aromatic molecules that can serve as organic semiconductors
About:
Assistant Prof. – 2021-present – Technion, Physical Organic Chemistry
Senior Scientist – 2017-2021 – ETH Zurich, Physical Organic Chemistry
PostDoc – 2015-2017 – ETH Zurich, Physical Organic Chemistry
PhD – 2010-2015 – Technion, Physical Organic Chemistry
MSc – 2007-2010 – Technion, Organic Chemistry
BSc – 2004-2007 – Technion, Molecular Biochemistry
Fellowships
2022 Alon Scholarship – Integration of Outstanding Faculty
2021 Horev Fellowship – Leaders in Science and Technology
2019 Branco Weiss Fellowship – Society in Science
2016-2018 The VATAT Fellowship for Excellent Female Post-Doctoral Scholars
2012-2014 The Schulich Fellowship for Excellence in Graduate Studies – Ph.D.
2007-2009 The Schulich Fellowship for Excellence in Graduate Studies – M.Sc.
Honors and Awards
2024 The Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research, presented by the Wolf Foundation
2023-2024 Commendation for Excellence in Teaching (Principles of Chemistry A, Technion)
2021 Golden Owl Award for Excellence in Teaching (OC4: Molecular Orbital Theory, ETH Zurich)
2018 Junior Scientist Participation award to attend the ’53rd B ¨urgenstock Conference’
2017 Poster Award at GRC Physical Organic Chemistry; Poster chosen for talk
2015 The Weissman and Jacknow Prize for Continued Excellence in Teaching
2014 The Schulich Prize for Excellence in Teaching
2014 Vivian Konigsberg Award for Continued Excellence in Teaching
2013 Selected to be a participant in the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting (Chemistry)
2013 Selected to be a participant in the 1st Global Young Scientists Summit, Singapore
2013 Sandor Szego Award for Excellence in Teaching
2012 The Schulich Prize for Excellence in Teaching
2010 Sandor Szego Award for Excellence in Teaching
2009 Sandor Szego Award for Excellence in Teaching
2009 The Schulich Prize for Excellence in Teaching
2008-2009 Sharett Foundation Scholarship for Excellence in Music – Singing
2008 Vivian Konigsberg Award for Excellence in Teaching
2007 Schulich Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Studies
2007 Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Award for Excellent Undergraduate Students
2007-2008 Sharett Foundation Scholarship for Excellence in Music – Singing (with distinction)
2004-2007 President of the Technion’s Award for Excellence in Studies, 5 semesters (top 3%)
Research Area in Energy:
Molecular design of polycyclic aromatic systems as novel organic semiconductors (sustainable energy harvesting, storage, and utilization), and as ligands for earth-abundant-based organometallic catalysts (sustainable catalysts)
Research Interests:
Renewable Energy Sources: Photovoltaics.
We use computational chemistry and AI tools to explore the chemical space of polycyclic aromatic molecules and design new potential organic semiconducting scaffold, that can be used in organic photovoltaic cells, organic field effect transistors, etc.
We are also designing new types of aromatic scaffold that can serve as redox-active ligands, which enable the use of earth-abundant metals (such as Fe, Mn, Co) for organometallic catalysis. These advances will allow us to reduce our reliance on precious metals, such as Pd and Pt, which are more toxic.
Selected Publications:
I. Warren, K. Mlodzikowska-Pienko, S. Jalife, I. S. Demachkie, J. I. Wu, M. M. Haley, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Effects of Benzoheterocyclic Annelation on the s-Indacene Core: a Computational Analysis, Chemical Science 2025, 16, 575.
Mayo Yanes, S. Chakraborty, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, COMPAS-2: a Dataset of Cata-Condensed Hetero-Polycyclic Aromatic Systems, Scientific Data 2024, 11, 97.
Jalife, A. Tsybizova, R. Gershoni-Poranne, and J. I. Wu, Modulating Paratropicity in Heteroarene Fused Expanded Pentalenes, Organic Letters 2024, 26, 1293-1298.
Wahab and R. Gershoni-Poranne, COMPAS-3: a dataset of peri-condensed polybenzenoid hydrocarbons, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys 2024, 26, 15344.
Chakraborty, E. Mayo Yanes, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Hetero-Polycyclic Aromatic Systems: A Data-Driven Investigation of Structure-Property Relationships, Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry 2024, 20, 1817.
Garhwal, S. Raje, K. Mlodzikowska-Pienko, T. S. Mohammed, R. Rafaeli, N. Fridman, L. J. W. Shimon, R. Gershoni-Poranne, and G. de Ruiter, N2 Dissociation vs. Reversible 1,2-Methyl Migration in PCNHCP Cobalt(I) Complexes in the Stereoselective Isomerization (E/Z) of Allyl Ethers, JACS Au 2024, 4, 4234.
Weiss, A. Wahab, A. Bronstein, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Interpretable Deep-Learning Unveils Structure-Property Relationships in Polybenzenoid Hydrocarbons, Journal of Organic Chemistry 2023, 88, 9645.
Weiss, E. Mayo Yanes, S. Chakraborty, A. M. Bronstein and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Guided Diffusion for Inverse Molecular Design, Nature Computational Science 2023, 3, 873.
Yang, R. Nandi, A. Orieshyna, R. Gershoni-Poranne, S. Zhang, and N. Amdursky, Light-Triggered Enhancement of Fluorescence Efficiency in Organic Cages, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2023, 15, 136.
Paenurk and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Simple and Efficient Visualization of Aromaticity: Bond Currents Calculated from NICS Values, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2022, 24, 8631.
Wahab, L. Pfuderer, E. Paenurk, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, The COMPAS Project: A Computational Database of Polycyclic Aromatic Systems. Phase 1: cata-Condensed Polybenzenoid Hydrocarbons, Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 2022, 62, 3704.
Fite, A. Wahab, E. Paenurk, Z. Gross, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Text-based Representations with Interpretable Machine Learning Reveal Structure–Property Relationships of Polybenzenoid Hydrocarbons, Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry, 2022, 36, e4458.
Markert, E. Paenurk, and R. Gershoni-Poranne, Prediction of Spin Density, Baird-Antiaromaticity, and Singlet-Triplet Energy Gap in Triplet-State Polybenzenoid Systems from Simple Structural Motifs, Chemistry – A European Journal, 2021, 27, 6923.
Thenarukandiyil, E. Paenurk, A. Wong, N. Fridman, A. Karton, R. Carmieli, G. Ménard, R. Gershoni-Poranne, and G. de Ruiter, Extensive Redox Non-Innocence in Iron Bipyridine-Diimine Complexes: a Combined Spectroscopic and Computational Study, Inorganic Chemistry, 2021, 60, 18296.
Gershoni-Poranne, A. P. Rahalkar, and A. Stanger, The Predictive Power of Aromaticity: Quantitative Correlation between Aromaticity and Ionization Potentials and HOMO-LUMO Gaps in Oligomers of Benzene, Pyrrole, Furan, and Thiophene, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2018, 20, 14808.