Yurii Gun’ko graduated from the Chemistry Department of Moscow State University in 1987. He also received his Ph.D degree in Inorganic Chemistry from Moscow State University in 1990. Then he worked as a lecturer in Chemistry in Belorussian Institute of Technology (Belarus). In 1994 he received a postdoctoral position in the group of Professor M.F. Lappert in the University Sussex (UK). In 1995, he was awarded Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and worked in the University of Magdeburg (Germany) with Professor F. T. Edelmann. After that he returned to the University Sussex and worked as a postdoctoral researcher. In 1999, Yurii moved to the Chemistry Department of Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) to take up the position of lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry. He is currently the holder of the established Chair of Inorganic Chemistry (1922). His main research interests and activities are: nanomaterials synthesis, magnetic nanostructures, plasmonic and quantum dot based materials.