Research Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Old Dominion University

Physical Sciences Bldg II, Room 1104 (COSMIC Laboratory), 4402 Elkhorn Ave,  Norfolk, VA, 23529. 

Office: 3000E Chemistry and Biochemistry Bldg., 4501 Elkhorn Avenue, Norfolk, VA, 23529.

E-mail: spagola@odu.edu 
TEL: (757)-254-7165 

ORCID iD iconhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2083-7599

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Crystal engineering and Mechanochemistry.
  • Kinetics and mechanisms of mechanochemical reactions. In situ and ex situ kinetics monitoring by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction.
  • Synthesis and solid-state characterization of organic ferroelectric cocrystals. 
  • Synthesis and study of the properties of pharmaceutical drug-drug cocrystals and salts.
  • Direct-space methods for crystal structure determination from X-ray powder diffraction. Rietveld analysis. Single crystal X-ray diffraction.

Biographical Sketch

I was born and raised in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. I earned a Licentiate in Chemistry degree in 1992 with coursework oriented to Physical Chemistry, at the National University of Córdoba. In 1997, I defended my doctoral thesis in Solid-State Chemistry at the Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Sciences, National University of Córdoba. I synthesized ternary transition metal oxides and studied their properties using various techniques, such as X-ray powder diffraction, neutron powder diffraction, Rietveld analysis, Raman spectroscopy, FT-IR reflectivity, and electrical resistivity measurements as a function of the temperature. After my doctoral thesis, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate (1998-2000) at the SUNY X3B1 X-ray powder diffraction beamline at the NSLS-I, Brookhaven National Laboratory-SUNY at Stony Brook, Department of Physics and Astronomy, wherein I learned about direct-space methods to solve crystal structures from X-ray powder diffraction data, by then a rather new field. I returned to Córdoba for around two years as a researcher and teacher, later I worked at the pharmaceutical company Apotex Inc (Toronto, Canada) as a specialist in X-ray powder diffraction, and in 2007 I returned to the USA as a postdoctoral researcher in the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. I stayed there as a Research Scientist II in the Department of Applied Science, while I initiated research work in mechanochemistry for the synthesis of charge transfer complexes of tetrathiafulvalene and their solid-state characterization, in addition to crystal structure determination from powders. Since 2018, I am a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Old Dominion University. My current research work focuses on (1) The investigation of the kinetics of mechanochemical reactions with the objective of determining their activation energies, using in situ Raman spectroscopy (funded by NSF); (2) the synthesis of organic ferroelectrics and their solid-state characterization, including X-ray single crystal diffraction; (3) the synthesis of pharmaceutical drug-drug combinations for pharmaceutical drug repurposing. For specific details see individual research project outlines here.