Photochemical reactions play a key role in several biochemical processes such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration of certain bacteria. Electron and proton transfer reactions are the most important photochemical elementary processes. My research is focused on investigating the photochemical processes of organic molecules in solutions and biologically relevant environments, such as phospholipid membranes. The studied systems serve as simplified models for the real systems and hence help us to understand the complicated processes occurring in nature. The main research methods are based on time-resolved optical spectroscopy. With the use of extremely short laser pulses, we are able to study processes that occur in a fraction of a second down to the femtosecond (10–15 s) time scale. These spectroscopic tools provide detailed information about the initial steps and mechanism of photochemical processes.
I work as a Senior lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, University of Jyväskylä. Besides my research, I supervise student projects and physical chemistry laboratory courses.
Link to home page: https://www.jyu.fi/science/en/chemistry/staff-and-administration/staff/kumpulainen-tatu
Twitter: @KumpulainenTatu