Peter Zavalij Elected Fellow of the American Crystallographic Association
For 20 years, Zavalij has helped students and faculty conduct studies at UMD’s X-ray Crystallographic Center.
From an early age, Peter Zavalij’s career path was crystal clear. He excelled in both math and chemistry while growing up in Ukraine, and with mentorship and support from his high school chemistry teacher, Zavalij was soon competing in national Chemistry Olympiad competitions.
“Because of that activity, in ninth grade, I got involved in a research project with the chemistry department at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, which specialized in crystallography,” Zavalij said. “When I graduated from high school, my knowledge in chemistry was an order better than math, so there was no question where to go.”
Zavalij ultimately earned his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. in chemistry from the same university and then launched his career in crystallography: the study of how atoms are arranged in crystals, which are found in solids ranging from rocks to snowflakes to bones and teeth. Crystallography has wide-ranging applications in medicine, materials science, physics, geology and even archaeology, as it tells a story about the building blocks of matter and how those pieces connect.
For the last 20 years, Zavalij has been leading the X-ray Crystallographic Center (XCC), a hub of state-of-the-art X-ray equipment in the University of Maryland’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. As director, he assists faculty members and students with their research, providing training and mentorship every step of the way.
In recognition of his contributions to the field of crystallography, Zavalij was nominated to the 2024 class of American Crystallographic Association (ACA) fellows, which includes five other professionals from across the country. An active member of the ACA, Zavalij has served on several committees and special interest groups related to crystallography.
He is also active with a larger professional group, the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD), and previously received the organization’s McMurdie Award in 2020 for his contributions to a ceramic compounds subcommittee and to the ICDD’s Powder Diffraction File—the “only crystallographic database that is specifically designed for material identification and characterization,” according to the organization.
Zavalij has established himself as a leader in crystallography, especially powder diffraction—a method used to characterize the size and shape of tiny crystals, with some measuring just billionths of a meter. He has even co-authored a textbook on the subject, titled “Fundamentals of Powder Diffraction and Structural Characterization of Materials.”
Before UMD, Zavalij spent 12 years using crystallography to study battery materials at the State University of New York at Binghamton’s Institute for Materials Research under the leadership of chemist M. Stanley Whittingham, a 2019 Nobel Prize winner. Together, Zavalij and Whittingham co-authored more than 100 scientific papers.
Since joining UMD, Zavalij has been instrumental in XCC’s growth, helping to secure more advanced machines and a larger user base. The center started with just two instruments and now has six—and potentially soon-to-be seven if their funding application is approved—suited to different types of analyses.
Only two students frequented the XCC in 2005, and now more than 50 UMD students and a number of researchers—including Efrain Rodriguez and Lyle Isaacs in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Johnpierre Paglione in the Department of Physics—use its equipment. The center is also used by faculty members in the A. James Clark School of Engineering, as well as other universities and federal labs in the Washington, D.C. region.
Zavalij assists many faculty members with their analyses, earning him co-author credits on more than 450 papers throughout his career. Though Zavalij does not teach classes, his ongoing mentorship helps budding chemists improve their craft.
“Working with students is very interesting,” Zavalij said. “We teach students how to use the instruments and how to do simple analyses, and if they have a problem, we’ll sit down and see what else can be done and whether additional analyses are needed.” In addition to training students on existing technologies, Zavalij is always looking for new ways to innovate, keeping tabs on the latest advancements in X-ray crystallography so that the XCC can remain competitive in the region.
As Zavalij considers the future of the XCC, he looks forward to combining new technologies with “old, classic teaching methods” to share the world of crystallography with beginners and seasoned chemists alike.
Written by Emily Nunez
