| Ph.D. Physics | University of York, UK | 2004 |
| MPhys Theoretical Physics with First-Class Honours | University of York, UK | 2000 |
| Project Scientist | University of California, Santa Barbara | January 2011-Present |
| Research Visitor | Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen |
May 2010-June 2010 |
| Research Specialist | University of California, Santa Barbara | December 2008-December 2010 |
| Postdoctoral Scholar | University of California, Santa Barbara | July 2006-December 2008 |
| Postdoctoral Scholar | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | October 2003-June 2006 |
| Mentor for "The African School series on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications" (ASESMA) |
| Mentoring junior graduate students and international exchange summer research students |
| Classroom teaching as the primary instructor in tutorial classes for beginning undergraduate students in elecromagnetism and atomic physics |
| Teaching assistant in undergraduate computational physics laboratory |
Summary of Research Interests
Condensed matter theory and electronic structure methods, including:
- Computation of properties of materials from first principles:
- Surface, interface, defect-related and bulk properties
- Electronic excitation spectra, optical response
- Magnetoelectric couplings
- Functional property enhancement by strain, composition, heterostructuring, impurity implantation and alloying
- Materials of interest:
- Nitrides for optoelectronics and photovoltaic applications
- Complex transition-metal oxides
- Rare-earth pnictides
- Computational approaches:
- Density functional theory for ground-state properties
- Many-body perturbation theory for excited-state properties, GW, GW+BSE
- Hybrid first-principles and model-hamiltonian simulations bridging time, length and temperature scales
- Quantum Monte Carlo simulations
Research History
From July 2006 I joined the groups of Nicola Spaldin and Chris G. Van de Walle as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since then, I have been working on applying first principles methods, including density functional theory, many-body perturbation theory and Monte Carlo methods, to study problems of interest in functional materials, including describing the non-radiative loss mechanisms in nitride-based light emitters, designing magnetoelectric materials and studying the electronic structure of rare-earth pnictides and their composites.
Between October 2003 and June 2006 I was a postdoctoral research associate in the groups of David Ceperley and Richard Martin at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working with applying sophisticated quantum Monte Carlo methods to the high-pressure phase behavior of pure hydrogen.
Prior to October 2003 I studied for my PhD in the Condensed Matter Physics group at the University of York in the United Kingdom, under the supervision of Prof. Rex Godby.
For my thesis I was interested in the application of the GW approximation to computing accurate ground state total energies of electronic systems. I also studied the validity of the pseudopotential approximation in GW calculations, and theoretical methods for computing the bandwidth of metallic systems.
The abstract to my PhD thesis can be downloaded in postscript or PDF format. To request an electronic copy of the full thesis, please email me.