A huge congrats to Dr. Luis Alberto Becerril Landeros on the successful defense of his PhD at Cinvestav today! Luis did an amazing job of representing all of his research using aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition. We were honored to be included in his presentation when he showed the intriguing results of his work here in Oregon, measuring the perovskite formation process using SSTA. Congratulations Dr. Becerril!

A big welcome to Gwyn Gagnon, who is joining our lab for an REU this summer. Gwyn is a rising senior at Emmanuel College, majoring in chemistry. She will be working with Laila on improving our aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition apparatus so it can perform simultaneous in situ absorbance, fluorescence, and single-shot transient absorption measurements. Looking forward to a productive summer of design and measurement!

Congratulations to Zach, who was hooded at commencement today. Zach has done phenomenal work in the lab, figuring out how to do very difficult temperature dependent measurements to understand how small organic molecules and organic polymers behave during thermal annealing. The methods that Zach developed help us untangle the heterogeneous samples that we encounter in real life, allowing us to tease out their constituent parts and monitor how they behave. Zach will be moving on to a tenure-track teaching assistant professor position at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls, and we wish him the best of luck!

A big congrats to Weston and Logan who both graduated today. Weston was awarded the Warner Peticolas Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Chemical Research in Physical Chemistry for his work to understand how CuPc molecules aggregate into thin films. Logan was awarded the ACS Undergraduate Award in Physical Chemistry which recognizes outstanding achievement by an undergraduate student in physical chemistry. Logan was also selected for the American Institute of Chemists Foundation Award for Outstanding Senior. Congratulations to Weston and Logan on all of their accomplishments, and we wish them luck as they go on to graduate school at the University of Southern California and Stanford University, respectively. We will miss them!

A big welcome to Dario Nunez, who will be joining the group to complete his capstone project for his Masters degree in the Advanced Materials Analysis and Characterization (AMAC) program. Dario will be performing in situ TEM measurements during halide segregation, melding his interests in optics, electron microscopy, and nanocrystals! Really looking forward to some exciting new science with Dario!

Congrats to the newly minted Dr. Walbrun on his superb thesis presentation! During his time in graduate school, Zach has pioneered incredibly tricky in situ transient absorption measurements during thermal annealing. Figuring out how to make precise measurements when the temperatures of all of your lenses are changing is no mean feat! Zach also made significant contributions to UO’s teaching mission, serving in many roles including TA, head TA, and instructor of record, earning a teaching award. Zach is headed off to his next adventure as a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls. Congrats, Zach!

Congrats to Weston, who gave a stellar seminar on his thesis work today! Weston detailed his efforts to control the crystal packing structure and excited state dynamics of copper phthalocyanine molecules in an incredibly clear and well-motivated talk to a huge audience with some of the many supporters and well-wishers he has developed over his years at UO. Congratulations, Weston!

Congrats to Megan on her superb Flash Talk at the symposium today to explain the darkfield transient absorption instrument she is helping us build! Also a terrific showing from Logan, Weston, and Jeffrey, who all had lots of great questions at their posters about their work on halide segregation, controlling the aggregation of phthalocyanine, and nanocrystal growth, respectively. Thanks for representing the group so well!

A big congrats to Zach, Aine, and Alyssa on the publication of their manuscript in J. Phys. Chem. Lett.! This paper demonstrates how exciton dynamics can be used as a filter to tease apart the different components in a heterogeneous system. They show in situ transient absorption measurements during the molecular aggregation of a squaraine molecule with an electron donor-acceptor-donor structure; a type of molecule with a lot of promise for organic photovoltaics. The project benefitted greatly from the efforts of our collaborators in Chris Collison’s group at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Terrific job, team!

Many thanks to Libai Huang who hosted my seminar visit to the Department of Chemistry at Purdue. What an incredibly strong and vibrant physical chemistry group!