Principal Investigators of M-STAR
Dmitri Talapin
Center Director
Dmitri Talapin is the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry and James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago. Prof. Talapin has been making breakthroughs in fundamental nanoscience, including quantum dots, nanoparticle assemblies, the synthesis of novel materials, surface chemistry, and nanoscale transport for nearly 25 years. He introduced his group to MXene chemistry with the explosive development of new methods to prepare, extract and refunctionalize MXenes of exceptional quality, and was among the first to demonstrate superconductivity in these materials. The Talapin group has since developed original, highly general methods for the direct synthesis of MXenes, including those only before predicted theoretically, and has introduced to the field the strongly-coupled class of hybrid organic-inorganic materials known as h-MXenes.
As M-STAR Director, Prof. Talapin will bring together fundamental physical chemistry, materials science, and the physics of surfaces and optical materials to bring MXenes into a new era as platforms for basic research as well as advanced applied materials.
EMAIL: dvtalapin@uchicago.edu
Yury Gogotsi
Co-Investigator
Yury Gogotsi is the Distinguished University and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. He also serves as Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute. Professor Gogotsi was one of the original discoverers of MXenes in 2011. He brings to M-STAR a long career not only in MXene synthesis but also in electrochemistry, electrocatalysis, energy storage, nanocomposites, and confined fluids.
Prof. Gogotsi is M-STAR’s industry outreach liason.
EMAIL: gogotsi@drexel.edu
Babak Anasori
Co-Investigator
Babak Anasori is the Reilly Rising Star Associate Professor of Materials and Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Prof. Anasori has been a leader in MXene science since his graduate training at Drexel under Yury Gogotsi, and introduced to the field double-metal and high-entropy MXenes. His group will specialize in the synthesis and characterization of these novel materials, their application and stability at high temperatures and their incorporation into refractory composites.
EMAIL: banasori@iupui.edu
John Anderson
Co-Investigator
John Anderson is Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. As a synthetic inorganic chemist, he is a leader in studies of complex inorganic clusters and their organization into redox-active coordination polymers. His group will study the physical and organometallic chemistry of MXene surfaces and the kinetics and mechanisms of their transformation and catalysis.
Prof. Anderson is the outreach liaison for M-STAR with the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
EMAIL: jsanderson@uchicago.edu
Zahra Fakhraai
Co-Investigator
Zahra Fakhraai is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Fakhraai studies the dynamics of complex materials in thin films through spectroscopic and scanning-probe microscopy methods, in particular how free surfaces interact with and restructure subsurface layers. Her group will study the evolution of MXenes in changing environments and their light-matter interactions as hyperbolic metamaterials.
Prof. Fakhraai is M-STAR’s education and outreach lead.
EMAIL: fakhraai@sas.upenn.edu
De-en Jiang
Co-Investigator
De-en Jiang is Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Vanderbilt University. Prof. Jiang has been advancing the simulation of microscopic processes in materials fundamental to the future of a sustainable society for over two decades. He will use density functional theory and big-data and machine learning methods to quantify the energetics and structures of MXene interfaces, especially the interactions between organic and inorganic layers.
EMAIL: de-en.jiang@vanderbilt.edu
Aleksandra Vojvodic
Co-Investigator
Aleksandra Vojvodic is the Rosenbluth Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsyvania. She also serves as Director of the Penn Institute of Computational Science. Prof. Vojvodic is one of the world’s leading theoreticians in the in silico study of heterogeneous catalysts, electrocatalysts, and two-dimensional materials. She will guide M-STAR’s search in the massive chemical space spanned by MXenes through simulations using density functional theory, molecular dynamics, and machine learning.
Prof. Vojvodic is the outreach liaison for M-STAR with the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
EMAIL: alevoj@seas.upenn.edu