Faculty and Undergraduate Student Research Database

As a rising star, perovskite-based photovoltaics have been demonstrated to be the most promising solar technology for low-cost mass production through high-speed printing. The certified champion power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) has been boosted to 25.7%, which is on par with the best performance of dominating silicon solar cells. However, PVSCs still must overcome a few obstacles before becoming economically competitive in the photovoltaic market. The primary challenges include instability causing reduction in lifetimes and lengthy annealing times limiting the mass production. In this project, undergraduate students research fellow will work with graduate students and postdoctoral research fellows to explo...

This interdisciplinary project aims to explore a new concept of using biological process (cell culture) to enable metal thin film deposition and device fabrication. It comprises three aspects, 1) study of biological process to see how the cell culture condition controls the cell growth and metabolic products formation; and 2) study of the metal film deposition process to see how we can modify the substrate to control the film growth; 3) combine the above two aspects using the bio-metabolism products to enable and control the metal thin film growth. This research position focuses the 2nd aspect, studying the metal deposition in relation to substrate and process. Strong interest is required, and some related background are preferred...

Undergraduate researchers in the Harris Laboratory participate in research projects related to heterogeneous catalyst synthesis, characterization, and measurement of reaction kinetics. As much as possible, students will have their own independent research projects in addition to responsibilities related to multi-student research thrusts in production of renewable fuels, chemicals, and protection of air and water quality. Students are expected to commit to ten hours per week of research activity that will be guided by Dr. Harris and his graduate students. Students are also expected to commit to working in the lab for a minimum of two semesters. Students will prepare final reports summarizing their efforts, and present in our laboratory gr...

Designing new environmentally friendly and cheap materials for practical applications is one of the main challenges of our century. This process is however very slow because synthesizing and testing new materials take time and have considerable cost. Computational methods provide an alternative method to screen materials faster and circumvent the costly and slow experimental trial-and-error approach. In this research area, machine learning-based methods have emerged as flexible tools recently to predict the properties of hitherto unknown materials based on previously known information. The Szilvasi group is working on developing databases and machine learning-based workflows to design new materials in the area of catalysis, energy storage, ...

Catalysis is used to produce most chemicals worldwide. Thus, optimization of catalysts is relevant for both economic and environmental reasons. The ever-increasing computational power has led to the rise of computational research in catalysis that has been one of the main developments of the previous decades in the field. Computations have helped understanding chemical bonding, assign spectroscopic features, and explore reaction mechanisms among others. Regarding this latter, identifying rate-determining steps and analyzing critical chemical interactions have become standard tools to understand catalytic reactions and design more active, selective, and/or stable catalysts. As such, the Szilvasi group is interested in using computational met...

Dr. Cheng is looking for motivated undergraduate students to join his group. The students will participate in several projects funded by NSF, GLPF and UA. As an example, his group is developing new implantable material, sensors and machine learning algorithms in order to remotely monitor people with disabilities. The students should be familiar with engineering principles, programming and problem solving....

The control of chemical transformation via catalysis is both an exceptional intellectual challenge and critically important to the Nation. Catalysis is central to energy production and utilization, to chemical manufacturing, to the minimization of environmental impact, and it has been arguably the single most important agent for sustainable development in the developing world. The revolutions in nanotechnology and high performance computing provide unprecedented new opportunities to elucidate the fundamental principles governing the control of chemical transformation by catalysts. Indeed, the coupling of theory, modeling and simulation with experiment will provide the most profound insights into catalyst behavior and thus enable the design ...

Elucidation of the structure, function, and mode of action of metallobiomolecules.The elucidation of the structure, function, and mode of action of metallobiomolecules via: 1) spectroscopic, magnetic, kinetic and biochemical studies of the natural systems and 2) the synthesis and characterization of biomimetic inorganic complexes. Our research applies biochemical and synthetic and physical inorganic methods to characterize the function and properties of metallobiomolecules (naturally occurring molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, sugars, etc. that contain tightly bound metal ions). The presence of the metal ions gives these species unique magnetic and spectroscopic properties (such as color) that provide avenues (not available to t...

The Summers research lab is always looking for motivated undergraduate students who are interested in performing research at the interface of engineering, microbiology, and biochemistry. Students will work on one of several projects related to genetic engineering of bacteria and yeast, including: (1) Elucidation of how bacteria recognize and respond to caffeine in their environment (2) Development of tools to engineer bacteria and yeast (3) Engineering bacteria to create high-value chemicals (4) Engineering yeast cells to produce high-value chemicals Students should expect to spend 6-10 hours per week in the lab. A commitment of at least one academic year is requested, but ideally students will continue to perform research in the l...

Advanced computational electronic structure methods will be used to calculate the geometries, vibrational frequencies, energetics, and excited state properties of important compounds of biological interest. Both correlated molecular orbital theory and density functional theory will be used. The focus of the work is on charging of peptides for explaining mass spectrometry results for both cationic and anionic peptides. The cationic work will focus on transition metal ion charging. Both types of studies are relevant to the study of the Human proteome....