Students & Postdocs – Center for Adopting Flaws as Features

First-year chemistry students learn data analytics in new lab curriculum

A team of scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Rice University and Danville Area Community College has created an affordable laboratory curriculum for teaching advanced data analysis techniques and instrument building to first-year general chemistry students.

Students in the course at DACC get a first-hand look at the inside of a spectrometer by building a simple one from a kit and discover how they can use programming and data science techniques to extract hidden information from chemical measurements, the scientists say.

Students win 2023 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Students Zac Faitz (Zanni Group, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Autumn Bruncz, Sadie Brasel, and Eric Gomez (Link Group, Rice) have been awarded 2023 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships!

Each of them are valuable members of our Center, and they come from distinct backgrounds that shaped them into the scientists they are today. Read more here!

Landes student wins 2023 RURS Shapiro Showcase

Undergrad student Annette Jones (Landes Group, Rice University) won the Shapiro Showcase at the 2023 Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium!

We wish her the best of luck as she heads to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in fall 2023 to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry.

Graduate Student Zach Armstrong Defends Thesis

Graduate student Zach Armstrong defends thesis

Congratulations to Dr. Zach Armstrong for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis entitled, “Ultrafast Two-Dimensional White-Light Spectroscopy of Excitons in Disordered Environments” October 7, 2022!

Excitons in semiconductors often experience disordered environments. Disorder can impact the energetics and relaxation dynamics on ultrafast timescales, both having implications for the operation of photovoltaics. In this dissertation, I study the impact of disorder on novel semiconductors using two-dimensional white-light (2DWL) spectroscopy and microscopy.

Dr. Armstrong will spend a season working as ski patrol before he begins a postdoctoral position at the University of Colorado.

Graduate Student Miriam Bohlmann Kunz Defends Thesis

Graduate student Miriam Bohlmann Kunz defends thesis

Congratulations to Dr. Miriam Bohlmann Kunz for successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis entitled, “Ultrafast Pulse-Shaping Applied to Multi-Dimensional Spectroscopy and Novel Microscopy Methods” on August 26, 2022!

Semiconducting thin films are the building blocks of next generation photovoltaic devices. In many of these devices, energy transfer is necessary for creating a photocurrent from the initially excited electrons. Studying the energy transfer is a difficult task as it happens on the femtosecond to picosecond time scales and between grains that are 10 nanometers to 1 micrometer in diameter and layers that are hundreds of nanometers thick. The tools with both adequate spatial resolution and time resolution to resolve the energy transfer are limited. In this dissertation I will describe the use and development of methods to study the energy transfer within semiconducting thin films.

Graduate Student Alexander Al-Zubeidi Defends Thesis

Graduate student Alexander Al-Zubeidi defends thesis

Congratulations to Dr. Alexander Al-Zubeidi for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis entitled, “Plasmonic Hot Carrier-Driven Electrochemistry” on August 19, 2022!

The need for renewable energy has sparked widespread interest in photocatalysts, including systems based on plasmonic metal nanoparticles. To take advantage of these materials, a fundamental understanding of how plasmon-induced hot-carriers drive chemical reactions is needed. This work examines how different hot carrier distributions affect electrochemical reactions of plasmonic nanoparticles, and how applied electrochemical potentials can be used to modify the reactivity of hot carriers.

Dr. Al-Zubeidi accepted a postdoctoral research associate position with the Link Lab at Rice University.

Graduate Student Anastasiia Misiura Defends Thesis

Graduate student Anastasiia Misiura defends thesis

Congratulations to Dr. Anastasiia Misiura for successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis entitled, “2D and 3D Single-Molecule Microscopy to Enhance Protein Chromatography” in Summer 2022!

To advance our understanding of underlying phenomena in a chromatographic column, 2D and 3D single-molecule techniques were utilized. We uncover the differences in protein motion in mobile phases, depending on salt concentration, and correlated the results to an ensemble chromatogram. We also demonstrate the importance of the combined influence of surface properties on adsorption-desorption kinetics of proteins to the stationary phase. Overall, we have shown that single-molecule methods can uncover the details of protein dynamics and transport at the nanoscale and relate them to ensemble chromatography and apply them to protein purification at-scale.

Graduate Student Behnaz Ostovar Defends Thesis

Graduate student Behnaz Ostovar defends thesis

Link Group, Rice University

Congratulations to Dr. Behnaz Ostovar for successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis entitled, “Plasmon-Mediated Carrier Dynamics in Metal Nanoparticles and Hybrid Nanostructures” in Spring 2022!

In this thesis, I studied the optical properties and ultrafast dynamics of novel nanomaterials, including emerging aluminum nanostructures, gold nanorods, and novel gold nanorod-semiconductor core-shell heterostructures. I utilized single-particle microscopy and transient ultrafast spectroscopy techniques that allow for detailed investigation of transient dynamics and optical properties of individual nanoobjects.

Dr. Ostovar is currently an Optical Waveguide Grating Engineer and a Waferfab Manufacturing Process Development Engineer at Lumentum.

Graduate Student Daniel Cotton Defends Thesis

Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Cotton for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis in Spring 2022!

Dr. Cotton accepted a postdoctoral position in the Dawlaty Group at the University of Southern California.