Current Team Members
Mary Blankenship (Graduate Researcher)
Mary just graduated with a Masters degree in Chemistry and is now a Ph.D. student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Her primary research as a Doktorandin involves the utilization of spectroscopic techniques to study the electronic and chemical properties of materials with novel quantum-based soft x-ray spectrometers. Mary is fascinated with Physical Chemistry, Energy and its practical application in our economy and environmental policy.
Moni Blum (Volunteer)
Moni's primary research interest is the study of the electronic and chemical properties of solids, solutions, and interfaces using x-ray and electron spectroscopies. During her Ph.D., Moni focused on applying soft x-ray spectroscopies to the study of liquids and solutions addressing fundamental questions of bio materials. Since then, her interests have moved toward more applied fields, in particular to the study of materials used in renewable energy conversion applications such as thin film solar cells and hydrogen generation. Also here the focus lies on in situ studies and how to make x-ray and electron spectroscopic operando measurements possible.
Samuel Chen (Volunteer)
Samuel just graduated from the AMSAT Academy at Ed W. Clark High School. He is focused on characterizing energy materials using spectroscopic methods, while gaining a deeper understanding of physical chemistry, materials science, and the research process. Improving the capability of energy conversion and storage technologies is vital for our future development, and Samuel hopes his research will contribute to these efforts.
Stephen Faussett (Graduate Researcher)
Stephen just finished his Undergraduate Studies at UNLV, majoring in both Physics and Chemistry. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry in our team, conducting research on novel iron-based oxides and their use as catalyst materials, using electron and soft x-ray spectroscopic methods. Stephen is captivated by energy and its vast utility in the world and is eager to develop his knowledge further to promote future advancements in renewable energy.
Dirk Hauschild (Adjunct Associate Professor)
Dirk’s research focuses on the investigation of surfaces and interfaces in applied material systems with soft x-ray and electron spectroscopies. During his Ph.D., he investigated the electronic and chemical structure of CIGSSe-based solar cells. Currently, Dirk utilizes soft and hard x-rays to study liquids, liquid/solid interfaces, and thin-film solar cells, e.g., perovskites and chalcopyrites. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany, Dirk is a research scientist in the Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation (IPS).
Clemens Heske (Professor)
Clemens uses lab- and synchrotron-based soft x-rays to study surfaces and interfaces in a wide variety of material systems for energy conversion. With the expertise and technical skills of the team, we collaborate with a large number of national and international partners in academia, national labs, and industry to investigate and improve thin film solar cells, materials for hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, fuel cells, light-emitting devices, nuclear fuel, and other systems that involve interfaces and require a deeper understanding of their electronic and chemical properties to optimize the performance and stability of the final device.
Clemens thoroughly enjoys spending time teaching Physical Chemistry at UNLV and being among his colleagues in the UNLV Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Also, he is a Professor and Institute Director at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Clemens thoroughly enjoys spending time teaching Physical Chemistry at UNLV and being among his colleagues in the UNLV Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Also, he is a Professor and Institute Director at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Lara Karaalp (Volunteer)
Lara is a senior at West Career & Technical Academy High School, where she has studied biotechnology for the past four years. She hopes to major in chemical or biomedical engineering. She is very interested in learning UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometry and reflectance spectroscopy to understand surfaces and derive band gaps of semiconductor compounds.
Jeyan Lacson (Undergraduate Researcher)
Jeyan is an undergraduate majoring in Chemistry at UNLV. She is interested in sustainability and physical chemistry's applications in the renewable energy industry. Jeyan is responsible for our "Scienta" surface science machine and is studying materials for energy conversion and hydrogen production, using x-ray and electron spectroscopy to analyze the chemical and electronic structure of surfaces and interfaces.
Sandra Lu (Undergraduate Researcher)
Sandra is majoring in Chemistry with plans to pursue a graduate degree in Forensic Science. She is currently working on the UV-Vis-NIR Spectrophotometer to understanding surfaces and band gaps of compounds using diffuse and specular reflectance spectroscopy.
Jennifer Napoles (Graduate Researcher)
Jenny is a graduate student with an interest in the applications that surface and material chemistry research explores. Currently, Jenny is using scanning probe microscopy and resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering to learn more about the morphology and electronic structure of inorganic and organic materials in a variety of applications.
Albert Paul (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Albert, from Kerala, India, is a Postdoctoral Researcher in our team. He completed his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico, where his research focussed on thin-film solar cells. His work at UNLV explores chemical and electronic properties of materials and interfaces using advanced spectroscopic techniques, with a particular emphasis on energy conversion applications.
Srabanti Ratna (Graduate Researcher)
Srabanti joined our team as a graduate student this fall. She received her M.Sc. degree from the Vellore Institute of Technology in Chennai, India, and also completed her Masters thesis at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Srabanti is currently focusing on the operation of our multi-chamber surface science instrumentation and will investigate materials for solar energy conversion with electron and x-ray spectroscopies.
Nykita Rustad (Undergraduate Researcher)
Nykita is an undergraduate Chemistry major at UC Berkeley. Utilizing a combination of spectroscopic techniques, she is currently working in the UNLV lab to characterize CdTe surfaces and understand their chemical and electronic properties. She will continue this research at the Advanced Light Source (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) during the academic year. By gaining a stronger understanding of the intricacies of surface interactions within renewable energy devices, Nykita hopes to contribute to the development of more efficient and sustainable energy technologies.
Ragini Sengupta (Graduate Researcher)
Ragini is a Ph.D. student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Having received her Masters degree in Chemistry, she is now working to understand an interesting category of iron oxides that could have potential use as catalysts in electrochemical splitting of water, thereby aiding the production of hydrogen. That fits perfectly well with what she had always wanted to do, namely explore the many ways in which energy can be converted. She is currently studying various spectroscopic methods at the Materials for Energy (MFE) lab and the KIT Light Source, which are great tools for understanding the chemical properties of catalysts.
Raiden Wadsworth (Undergraduate Researcher)
Raiden is an undergraduate student majoring in Biochemistry and is interested in learning more about the applications of spectroscopy and microscopy as well as the research process itself. He is currently working with Jenny Napoles on our scanning probe microscopes: the scanning tunneling microscope (in ultra-high vacuum) and the atomic force microscope (in air).
Constantin Wansorra (Assistant Adjunct Professor)
Constantin is a Postdoc at the Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation (IPS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. His research focuses on synchrotron-based techniques available at the X-SPEC beamline of the KIT Light Source in Karlsruhe. One of his research topics is the evaluation of excitation energy dependent Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) measurements, which are used for calculating depth distributions in materials. These measurements usually rely on calculated photoionization cross sections (PICS) that can vary by several orders of magnitude over the available excitation energy range. By comparing calculated PICS to measured data from reference samples, it is possible to estimate the error and reveal accuracy and risks of this technique.
Lothar Weinhardt (Adjunct Professor)
Lothar is working on applying electron and x-ray spectroscopies for the investigation of surfaces and interfaces in applied material systems. In particular, he is focusing on the development of specialized instrumentation to study such systems in in situ and operando environments. This also motivates his intense interest in using soft x-ray spectroscopies to study the electronic structure of liquids and gases, which includes salts and molecules in solutions relevant for biological questions. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany, Lothar leads the division for x-ray spectroscopy in the Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation (IPS).