Patricia Anne Hunt is a New Zealand chemist, and is a full professor at

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

, specialising in

ionic bonds Ionic bonding is a type of chemical bonding that involves the electrostatic attraction between oppositely charged ions, or between two atoms with sharply different electronegativities, and is the primary interaction occurring in ionic compound ...

in liquids. In 2024 Hunt was awarded one of two New Zealand Mana Tūārangi Distinguished Researcher Fellowships by the

Royal Society Te Apārangi The Royal Society Te Apārangi (in full, Royal Society of New Zealand) is a not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities. These fundings (i.e., Marsden grants and research fe ...

Academic career

Hunt completed a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Science in physics and chemistry, a Bachelor of Arts in politics and philosophy, and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

titled ''Jahn-Teller Distortions in Molecules Containing Group 15 Elements'' at the

University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...

. Hunt then undertook postdoctoral research at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

and

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. She was awarded a UK

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

University Research Fellowship, which she used to work at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. She was made Professor of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at Imperial in 2018, and moved to Victoria University of Wellington in 2020. Hunt researches the structure and chemical bonds in solvents and

ionic liquids An ionic liquid (IL) is a salt in the liquid state at ambient conditions. In some contexts, the term has been restricted to salts whose melting point is below a specific temperature, such as . While ordinary liquids such as water and gasoline are ...

. In 2022 she received a

Marsden grant Marsden Fund grants are contestable funding for investigator-led fundamental research in New Zealand. Grants are made in all areas of research in science, engineering, and mathematics. The grants are made from the Marsden Fund, which was establish ...

to model the structure of ionic liquids. Hunt is an associate investigator in the MacDiarmid Institute for Advance Materials and Nanotechnology.

Honours and awards

In 2011 Hunt received a President's Award for Excellence in Teaching at Imperial, and in 2015 she was awarded a prize for her research supervision. In November 2024 the Royal Society Te Apārangi awarded Hunt one of two inaugural New Zealand Mana Tūārangi Distinguished Researcher Fellowships. The fellowship was awarded for work "to use quantum chemical modelling to investigate ionic liquid micro-propulsion systems for mini satellites".

Selected works

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References

External links

Hunt talking about VUW-SNAP
a Network Hub for Simulation, Numerical methods, Analytics and Programming, 24 April 2024 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Patricia New Zealand academics New Zealand women academics Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington University of Auckland alumni New Zealand chemists Year of birth missing (living people) Academics of Imperial College London Recipients of Marsden grants