About Us

Principal Investigator

Craig J Fennie
Assistant Professor of Applied and Engineering Physics
REU Director for the CCMR
224 Clark Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-6498

Professional Preparation

Nicholas Metropolis Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow, Argonne National Lab, 2006–2008.
Ph.D. in Physics. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway NJ, 2006.

Awards

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), 2012.
Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER), NSF, 2011.
Young Investigator Award, Army Research Office, 2010.
The John J. Gallen Memorial Award, Villanova College of Engineering, 2008.
GSNB Dissertation Prize, The Graduate School of Rutgers University, 2007.
Richard J. Plano Dissertation Prize, Physics Department, Rutgers University, 2007.
Nicholas Metropolis Fellowship, Argonne National Lab, 2006 -2008.
Materials Research Society Fall Meeting Graduate Student Award, 2005.
Bell Labs-Rutgers University Graduate Fellowship, Rutgers University, 2005.

Students

Turan Birol
Field: Ph.D. Candidate in Physics
Joined Group: June 2009
Research interests: Ferroelectricity in layered oxides
Prior position: M.S. Student, Koc University
Hometown: Ankara, Turkey
Favorite Excitation: Phonon (Preferably in a nonpolar material)
Webpage: http://pages.physics.cornell.edu/~tbirol/

 

 

 

Andrew Mulder, NSERC Graduate Fellow
Field: Ph.D. Student in Physics
Joined Group: December 2010
Research interests: Structural distortions in layered perovskites
Prior position: B.A.Sc. Student, University of Toronto
Hometown: Guelph, Canada
Favorite 2D Lattice: Honeycomb

 

 

 

Brian Abbett
Field: Ph.D. Student in Applied Physics
Joined Group: May 2011
Research interests:
Prior position: MEng, BS Cornell University
Hometown:
Favorite:

 

 

 

Eva Smith, NSF Graduate Fellow
Field: Ph.D. Candidate in Materials Science and Engineering
Joined Group: August 2011
Research interests: Novel fluoroperovskites and catalysis
Prior position: B.A. student, Scripps College, in Chemistry and Mathematics
Hometown: Concord, Massachusetts
Favorite Elemental Property: Electronegativity

Post Doctoral Fellows

Hena Das
Joined group: April 2011
Research interests: Complex oxides, Structure-property relationships.
Prior position: Senior research fellow, S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata, India.
Hometown: Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Favorite linux command: awk
Favorite DFT code: NMTO
Favorite structure: Perovskite

 

 

Saurabh Ghosh
Joined group: April 2011
Research interests: nano-structured DMS materials,  nano-structured materials of C and BN,  transition metal clusters (in bare and in confined geometry), simple and multi-layered perovskite oxides
Prior position: Ph.D. candidate, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Hometown: Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Favorite Visualization: Spin-density isosurface

 

 

Alex Wysocki
Joined Group: January 2012
Research interests: Spintronics, complex oxides, magnetic thermodynamics
Prior position: graduate student/postdoc, Univeristy of Nebraska – Lincoln
Hometown: Poznan, Poland
Favorite minerals: magnetite

 

 

 

 

Choong Hyun Kim
Joined group: July 2012
Research interests: Electronic and magnetic properties of complex transition metal oxides (Ruthenates, Iridates, Nicklates, …), Novel spin-orbit entangled electronic states (topological insulators, Rashba effect, spintronics)
Prior position: Ph. D. candidate/ Postdoctoral fellow, Seoul National University
Hometown: Seoul, Korea
Webpage: http://www.choong.kr

 

 
Jiangang He
Joined group: July 2012
Research interests:  Magnetic and optical properties of transition metal oxides
Prior position: Postdoctoral associate, University of Vienna
Hometown: Qishan, Shaanxi, China
Favorite code: VASP

 

 

 

 

Young-Moo Byun
Joined group: February 2013
Research interests:  Complex oxides, Carbon nanomaterials, Catalytic microswimmers, Materials informatics, Many-body perturbation theory, Superconductivity, Atomic force microscopy
Prior position: Ph.D. Penn State University, B.S. Seoul National University
Hometown: Incheon, Korea
Favorite textbook: Introduction to quantum mechanics, David J. Griffiths

 

 

 

Former Members

Post Doctoral Fellows

• Peter Bose (Visitor, Jan 2010-July 2010; present position, Industry)

• L. Andrea Salguero (Postdoc, Jan 2010 to Sept 2011)
• Johannes Voss (PostDoc, Nov 2009-Jan 2012; present position, Postdoc at Stanford)

 

• Nicole Benedek (Postdoc, July 2009- July 2012; present position, Assistant Professor at U Texas at Austin)

 

REU’s

• Sonya Mollinger (REU, Summer 2010; present position, Stanford PhD program)
• Christian Sias (Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) in science and engineering REU Student; present position: undergrad at UMBC)
• Sainabou Jallow (REU, Sumer 2011; present position, senior at Reed College)