Panče Naumov

Panče Naumov is a Macedonian chemist and professor of chemistry at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). He holds a cross-appointment as a Global Network Professor at New York University in New York City. He is the founding director of the NYUAD Center for Smart Engineering Materials (CSEM) and leads its Smart Materials Lab.

Early life and education Naumov completed his Bachelor of Science in chemistry at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje in 1997. He earned his PhD in chemistry and materials science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2004.

Career Naumov was a research fellow at the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, from 2004 to 2007, and joined Osaka University as an associate professor (2007–2012) before a brief tenure as associate professor at Kyoto University (2012–2013).

In 2012, Naumov moved to New York University Abu Dhabi as an associate professor of chemistry. He also founded the UAE International Chemical Sciences Chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2016.

He served on the International Advisory Board of Angewandte Chemie (2021–2024).

Research Naumov's research focuses on smart materials, crystal engineering, solid-state chemistry, crystallography, photochemistry, and mechanochemistry. In 2018, he introduced the term crystal adaptronics to describe molecular crystals capable of integrating sensing, information processing, and mechanical actuation, and later proposed the related concept of mechanophotonics.

His group has investigated structural transitions associated with the thermosalient effect and reported related light-induced (photosalient) and force-induced (mechanosalient) phenomena in molecular crystals. The group has also studied shape-memory and self-healing behavior in molecular crystals and later extended this work to hybrid perovskite single crystals.

Naumov's group has examined molecular crystals as light-to-mechanical-work transducers, the autonomous transport of water and particles across subliming crystal surfaces, spiral-shaped crystal actuators inspired by natural morphologies and thermosalient-crystal-embedded "smart" membranes for self-cleaning desalination. His group's method for harvesting water from air was inspired by hygroscopic salt excretions of the desert shrub Tamarix aphylla. Awards and honors Fellow, American Chemical Society (2021). Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (2022). Selected publications Ding, C.; Tang, B.; Zhou, Y.; Jin, B.; Commins, P.; Al-Handawi, M. B.; Li, L.; Naumov, P.; Zhang, H. "Cryogenically Self-Healing Organic Crystals". Nature Materials 2026, 25, 285–293. Mahmoud Halabi, J.; Al-Handawi, M. B.; Ceballos, R.; Naumov, P. "Intersectional Effects of Crystal Features on the Actuation Performance of Dynamic Molecular Crystals". Journal of the American Chemical Society 2023, 145, 12173–12180. Panda, M. K.; Ghosh, S.; Yasuda, N.; Moriwaki, T.; Mukherjee, G. D.; Reddy, C. M.; Naumov, P. "Spatially Resolved Analysis of Short-Range Structure Perturbations in a Plastically Bent Molecular Crystal". Nature Chemistry 2015, 7, 65–72. Mahmoud Halabi, J.; Ahmed, E.; Sofela, S.; Naumov, P. "Performance of Molecular Crystals in Conversion of Light to Mechanical Work". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2021, 118, e2020604118. Al-Handawi, M. B.; Commins, P.; Dinnebier, R. E.; Abdellatief, M.; Li, L.; Naumov, P. "Harvesting of Aerial Humidity with Natural Hygroscopic Salt Excretions". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2023, 120, e2313134120.