Meet the Group
The Waz Group, Fall 2021
Michael R. Wasielewski is currently the Clare Hamilton Hall Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern, and Director of the Center for Molecular Quantum Transduction, a US-DOE Energy Frontier Research Center. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. His research has resulted in over 750 publications and focuses on light-driven processes in molecules and materials, artificial photosynthesis, molecular electronics, quantum information science, ultrafast optical spectroscopy, and time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. His honors and awards include membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Josef Michl American Chemical Society Award in Photochemistry; the Porter Medal for Photochemistry; the James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society; the Royal Society of Chemistry Physical Organic Chemistry Award; the Royal Society of Chemistry Environment Prize; the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society; the Bruker Prize in EPR Spectroscopy; the International EPR Society Silver Medal in Chemistry; the Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists; and the Humboldt Research Award.
Ryan Young
Ryan M. Young obtained his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006. He then studied anion dynamics using time-resolved photoelectron imaging at the University of California, Berkeley in the group of Daniel Neumark, receiving his Ph.D. in 2011. From there, he joined Michael Wasielewki’s group at Northwestern University as a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Environmental Chemistry Postdoctoral Fellow. Ryan directs research activities within the ISEN lab, ensuring a safe, productive, and collaborative research environment.
Email: ryan.young@northwestern.edu
Office: 847-467-5832
CV | Google Scholar |
Matthew Krzyaniak
Matthew D. Krzyaniak is an Electron Paramagnetic Resonance(EPR) specialist in Michael Wasielewski’s lab. His research interests include the application of EPR to the field of quantum information science, and the spin dynamics of radical and triplet pairs for use in solar energy.
He continued his studies at Michigan State University in the group of John McCracken and received his Ph.D. in 2010. At MSU he utilized advanced Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopic techniques to characterize the active site of metallo-enzymes. Following graduation he joined the group of Michael K. Bowman at The University of Alabama as a Postdoctoral Fellow and continued to master EPR spectroscopy by studying the spin relaxation of radicals and radical intermediates trapped within proteins. From there he joined Michael R. Wasielewski’s group at Northwestern University as a Research Associate in 2013.
Email: mdkrzyaniak@northwestern.edu
Office: 847-467-1896
CV | Google Scholar |
Nikolai Tcyrulnikov
Nikolai joined the group in September 2019 after completing his graduate studies at the Center for Photochemical Sciences in Bowling Green State University. His PhD research under supervision of Prof. R. Marshall Wilson was focused on the synthesis, experimental and computational investigation of various pyridinium salts with potential applications varying from DNA damage to molecular electronics. In the Wasielewski group, Nikolai is working on the synthesis of organic donor-acceptor systems for application in Quantum Information Science.
Email: nikolai.tcyrulnikov@northwestern.edu
Office: 847-467-7700
Paul Sanstead
Paul grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and graduated with a degree in Chemistry from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. He did his graduate work with Andrei Tokmakoff at the University of Chicago where he used transient temperature-jump nonlinear infrared spectroscopy to study the structural dynamics of DNA. His research in the Wasielewski group focuses on the development of systems for transducing entanglement between photons and electron spins.
Itai Schlesinger
Itai joined the Wasielewski group in August 2018 and joins us from the Physics department at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, where he studied under Prof. Uri Sivan. His work focuses on increasing the spatial resolution of pump-probe measurements by combining optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy with the ultrafast optical setup, as well as investigating charge transport properties of organic donor/acceptor crystals.
Email: itaischles@northwestern.edu
CV | Google Scholar | ResearchGate | LinkedIn
Yunfan "Frank" Qiu
Yunfan “Frank” Qiu was born in Wuxi, China. He received his B.Sc. degree at Nanjing University, where he worked on synthesizing and characterizing cationic diradicaloids with Prof. Xinping Wang. He then moved to Iowa State University and obtained his PhD under the supervisor of Prof Arthur H. Winter. His doctoral dissertation was on understanding reactive intermediates by spectroscopic properties, spin configurations and reactivities. He joined Wasielewski group in July, 2020. His research focus on exploiting EPR and ultrafast spectroscopies to bridge quantum information science with physical organic chemistry.
Email: yunfan.qiu@northwestern.edu
Robert Jacobberger
Robert completed his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Prof. Michael Arnold, where he investigated the synthesis and charge transport properties of graphene nanoribbons for semiconductor electronics and the directed self-assembly of block copolymers for nanofabrication at sub-10 nm dimensions. He joined the Wasielewski group in August 2020, where he is studying spin dynamics in solid-state organic materials for applications in quantum information science.
Email: jacobberger@northwestern.edu
Taeyeon Kim
Taeyeon was born in Seoul, Korea. He completed his undergraduate study and Ph.D. work at Yonsei University With Prof. Dongho Kim. He studied various molecular systems using electronic and vibrational time-resolved spectroscopic tools in his Ph.D. and has vast interests in photo-induced excited-state dynamics concerning structural evolutions. He joined the Wasielewski group in spring 2021.
Email: taeyeon.kim@northwestern.edu
Asif Equbal
Asif was born in Patna, one of the oldest cities of India. He completed his 5-year integrated BS-MS from IISER Mohali (India) in 2013, and moved to Aarhus, Denmark to pursue Ph.D. on “heteronuclear spin decoupling”- an indispensable building-block of NMR experiments. He finished his Ph.D with Professor Niels Nielsen in fall 2016. Research interest in Dynamic Nuclear Polarization or DNP took him to California for postdoctoral research in Professor Songi Han’s lab between 2017-2021. His research was focused on understanding the role of multi-electron spin interactions at microscopic level and leveraging its large magnitude for enhanced DNP performance. He joined the Wasielewski group in spring 2021 to work on development of quantum information science for application in quantum sensing and computing. He is exploring molecular spin-qubits using integrated optical and magnetic resonance techniques. He is also working on new methods on how to transfer quantum information between electron and nuclear spins, the former are typically used for computation, while the latter are used for information storage.
Email: asif.equbal@northwestern.edu
Laura Bancroft
Laura was born in Falmouth, MA and graduated from Wellesley College with her B.A. in Chemistry. While at Wellesley, she completed an honors thesis under Professor David Haines for organic synthesis of non-native ligands for type II diabetes research. After Wellesley, Laura came to Northwestern University and joined the Wasielewski group in 2017. Her research now focuses on electron spin teleportation using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Additionally, her work spans to other quantum information science-related projects such as testing the viability of organic qubits. Laura also enjoys gardening on her back porch, cooking and baking wonderfully complicated things, and spending time with her leopard gecko Jade.
Paige Brown
Paige grew up in Lancaster, PA and attended Bowdoin College for her undergraduate degree. At Bowdoin she received a B.A. in Chemistry and completed a thesis under Professor Kana Takematsu studying excited state proton transfer in aminonaphthols. She then came to Northwestern in the Summer of 2019 and joined the Wasielewski group. Her research focuses on generating entangled photons and measuring quantum transduction between photons and Donor-Chromophore-Acceptor molecules.
Hannah Eckvahl
Hannah is from Rancho Cucamonga, CA. She attended UCLA where she earned a B.S. in chemistry and worked with Dr. Kendall Houk using density functional theory to study the reactivity of cycloadditions. She also worked with Dr. Miguel Garcia-Garibay to help synthesize molecular rotors. She joined the Wasielewski group in fall 2020.
Jeremy Fisher
Jeremy grew up in Newton, MA and graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a major in chemistry and minors in biology and creative writing. During his undergraduate studies he did organic synthesis to develop novel polymers in the lab of Prof. Jonathan Barnes. Jeremy joined the Wasielewski group in the fall of 2018 where he is studying the role of quantum coherence in electron transfer for multi pathway donor-acceptor systems.
Chelsie Greene
Chelsie was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She completed her undergraduate degree at Washington State University where she earned a B.S. in chemistry and a minor in mathematics. At WSU, she worked on a bioremediation project involving the metabolization of the anthropogenic chelator ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA) through the epp-emo pathway from Chelativorans sp. BNC1 under Prof. Kang. She then came to Northwestern in the Fall of 2020, where she joined the Wasielewski group as a co-advised student with Prof. Schaller. Her work in the Wasielewski group involves the study of spin physics of semiconducting quantum dots for quantum information science application. Outside of lab, Chelsie enjoys cooking vegetarian food, hanging out with her dog, and spending time outdoors.
Oscar Huang
Oscar was born in Shenzhen, China and attended Haverford College for his undergraduate degree in chemistry. He studied exploratory synthesis of organic-inorganic hybrid materials assisted by machine learning under the supervision of Professors Alexander Norquist and Joshua Schrier. He then joined the Wasielewski group in fall 2019. His research here focuses on studying spin dynamics of materials using electron paramagnetic resonance, and connecting the exotic quantum mechanical properties of materials to potential applications in quantum information science (QIS).
Karen Ji
Karen is from Ann Arbor, MI. She attended the University of Chicago where she earned a B.S. in chemistry and worked with Professor Greg Engel. She joined the Wasielewski group in fall 2021.
Elisabeth Latawiec
Elisabeth is from Scranton, PA. She attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh where she earned a B.S. in chemistry and B.A. in mathematics. At Duquesne, she worked with Dr. Jeffrey Evanseck to complete an honors undergraduate thesis using density functional theory to investigate organocatalytic mechanisms. Elisabeth came to Northwestern and joined the Wasielewski group in the fall of 2020 to study spin qubit pairs in DNA hairpins.
Chenjian Lin
Chenjian completed his undergraduate studies at Peking University in China, studying under Prof. Chunhui Huang, where he worked on emissive lanthanide complex series. After a three-month research internship in the Wasielewski group on summer 2017, he officially joined Northwestern University for his Ph.D. studies on Fall 2018, and of course, returned to the same group. He is interested in synthesizing blue-absorbed organic molecules and studying their photophysical processes by fluorescence and transient absorption spectroscopy.
Emmaline Lorenzo
Emmaline grew up in Leawood, Kansas. She attended the University of Kansas, and earned a B.S. in chemistry and minors in mathematics and philosophy. At KU, she completed her undergraduate honors thesis with Professor Chris Elles, using two-photon excitation to study photocaged molecules. Emmaline joined the Wasielewski group in the fall of 2018, where she studies charge transfer and spin dynamics in spin qubit pairs in DNA hairpins, utilizing ultrafast optical spectroscopy and EPR.
Haochuan Mao
Haochuan was born and grew up in Hangzhou, China. As he turned 18, unlike most of his high school classmates who continued staying in Hangzhou, he was tired of that city and went to Nanjing, where completed his undergraduate education in chemistry at Nanjing University in 2017. His research in college involves investigating the static spin state of some boron-centered and nitroxyl radicals under the supervision of Prof. Xinping Wang. Unsured about how working in a foreign country was like, he did a two-month research internship in the summer of 2015 at the Universty of Sydney working on Open Source Malaria with Prof. Matthew Todd and felt great. He likes spin, EPR and quantum mechanics, so he joined the Wasielewski group in 2017 and has been working to learn more about the dynamics of spin like teleportation and polarization.
James O'Connor
James O’Connor grew up in Miami, FL before attending the University of Texas at Austin to major in Chemistry. Working under the labs of both Eric Anslyn and John Markert, James performed both novel organic synthesis on chiral compounds and nuclear magnetic resonance force microscopy respectively before graduating in early 2019 with a Bachelor of Science. James then later that year joined the Wasielewski group where he now studies Two-Dimensional Electronic Spectroscopy.
Email: jpoconnor@u.northwestern.edu
Jon Palmer
Jon grew up in Charlotte, NC, and received his BS in chemistry from North Carolina State University. During his undergraduate, he worked under Professor Phil Castellano to investigate metal-organic chromophore photophysics and energy-transfer phenomenon for use in photochemical upconversion and photocatalysis. Jon began pursuing a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Northwestern University in Fall 2021, and is a joint student between the Wasielewski and Weiss groups. His research focuses on merging the spin physics of semiconductor nanocrystals with molecules and molecular-like defects for applications in quantum information science.
Yue Qi
Yue was born and brought up in Guiyang, a beautiful city in the southwestern part of China, and, deciding it wasn’t cold and snowy enough, moved to Beijing to get her B.S. in Chemistry. While at Peking University, her research mainly focused on the design and synthesis of inorganic energy-storage materials. After graduating in 2017, and again, deciding Beijing wasn’t cold and snowy enough either, she moved oversea to Chicago area and joined the Van Duyne group at Northwestern University. There, her research interest shifted to investigating plasmon-driven reactions using Surface-Enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Yue moved to the Wasielewski group in the summer of 2019, excited about studying a broader scope of reaction dynamics using ultrafast spectroscopies. Yue’s hobbies outside of lab? You can tell from her profile picture.
Email: yueqi2017@u.northwestern.edu
Carolyn Ramirez
Carolyn attended the University of Texas at Austin for her undergraduate studies where she earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 2017. She conducted research in Professor Brian Korgel’s lab where she worked on perovskite photovoltaics, two-dimensional silicon synthesis, and lithium ion battery anode materials. She is now working on her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering here in the Wasielewski group researching the use of singlet fission organic chromophores in photovoltaic devices. Outside of lab, Carolyn enjoys live music, Texas football, and almost all foods.
Jon Schultz
Jon grew up in Stevens Point, WI, and attended the University of Minnesota Twin Cities where he worked with Professors R. Lee Penn and Renee R. Frontiera on problems ranging from groundwater remediation to improving the sensitivity of ultrafast Raman spectroscopy. During the summer of 2015, he worked with Professor Benjamin J. Lear on the photothermal effect at the Pennsylvania State University through the NSF REU research program. Jon received his bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from UMTC in the spring of 2017 and began pursuing his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Northwestern University in the fall. As a joint student in the Wasielewski and Ratner groups, his research concerns fundamental quantum phenomena that facilitate efficient energy and electron transfer in organic photovoltaic systems.
Email: JonathanSchultz2022@u.northwestern.edu
CV | ResearchGate | LinkedIn
Samuel Tyndall
Samuel is from Fort Wayne, IN and graduated from Miami University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science. He completed a summer internship in the Waz lab and officially joined the group in fall 2021.
Malik Williams
Malik Williams graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in Chemistry and a minor in Japanese Literature.
Fangbai Xie
Fangbai Xie was born and grew up in Wuhan, China. When he was in high school, he decided to study for Chemistry Olympiad and finally got a chance to participate in 46th International Chemistry Olympiad and won silver medal. That became the reason why he decided to studied for chemistry in Peking University in China from 2014. In Peking Univerity, he join in the Prof. Jian Pei’s research group and participated in the research about organic radicals and semiconductors. In the third summer of his undergraduate period, he did a summer research on supramolecular chemistry in Prof. Stoddart’s Group in Northwestern University and found that he is more interested in ESR and spintronics. That’s why he decided to choose Prof. Wasielweski’s group in 2018 for his graduate program. He would like to learn more about quantum computing and EPR/fsTA techniques to become a better researcher.
Jillian Bradley
Info coming soon!
Colin Tichvon
Colin completed his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University where he earned a B.A. in chemistry with honors for his thesis titled “The Synthesis and Characterization of a Novel Chromophore in DNA Hairpins for Applications in Quantum Information Science” based on work he performed with the Wasielewski group during his undergraduate. He is currently a Research Technician in the Waz Lab.
Melanie Sandberg
Melanie serves as the Wasielewski Group Administrator and Program Coordinator for the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), managing administration and projects for ISEN including the Center for Molecular Quantum Transduction (CMQT). Prior to joining ISEN, Melanie spent years working in the non-profit and higher education sectors. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Business and a Master of Business Administration degree with an emphasis on marketing from Lewis University.
Sarina McBride
Sarina is the ISEN/CMQT research administrator. Sarina performs administrative maintenance, compliance and review of ISEN’s sponsored research awards. She has a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Oregon and received her Masters of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.