I am a project scientist in the group of Prof. Chris G. Van de Walle, in the Materials Department and Materials Research Laboratory (MRL) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My duties include leading the semiconducting oxides research in our group and helping other postdocs and graduate students in our group. I am interested in applying first-principles methods based on Density Functional Theory to study materials properties, their defects, and hydrogen-related phenomena in solids. I am also very interested in the theoretical design of semiconductor materials with targeted band gaps (while my own research in the area is oriented to solid state lighting, I understand that optimal band gaps are also important for solar cells and gamma ray detectors).

I have a PhD degree in Physics in the area of computational materials science. Since my PhD, I have been applying state of the art first-principles methods based on DFT to understand materials properties. I have extensive experience with pseudopotentials and full-potential linearized augmented planewave methods. From 2000 to 2002, I was a posdoc at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, working on photovoltaic related materials, including hydrogen in dilute nitride alloys. From 2002 to 2004, I was a research associated at ORNL working on interdiffusion in nickel-based superalloys for high-temperature mechanical applications, transition metal doped ZnO for spintronics, and antiferromagnetic nanoparticles. My research credentials are reflected on publications in important peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Materials and Physical Review Letters, and invited talks at major conferences. I keep strong collaborations with both experimental and other theoretical research groups.

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