People

yihuang.xiong@dartmouth.edu

Yihuang’s from Nanjing, China. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State University with a research focus on the computational discovery of energy materials for water-splitting applications. He joined the Hautier group in 2021 and is working on the high-throughput search of quantum defects in semiconducting materials. He loves all kinds of food and really enjoys Boston Restaurant Week.

zhenkun.yuan@dartmouth.edu

Zhenkun joined the group as a postdoc in November 2022. He is from Hunan, China. He studied physics and earned a PhD degree in Theoretical Physics from Humboldt University of Berlin and Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society. His research interest is focused on point defects in photovoltaic materials. In his spare time, he plays basketball and tennis and do some jogging.

jiongzhi.zheng@dartmouth.edu

Jiongzhi Zheng obtained both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from North China Electric Power University, and after that, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Prof. Baoling Huang in 2021. During his Ph.D. period, his research focused on phonon-related properties, i.e., phonon transport, temperature-dependent phonons, and thermal transport theory. Currently, He mainly focus on high-throughput phonon calculations and phonon-related photoluminescence properties.

lei.zhang@dartmouth.edu

Lei joined the Hautier Group in Sep. 2023 as a postdoc research associate. Before that, he obtained his BS, MS and PhD all in Materials Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Penn State and Georgia Tech. He also did an internship at Oak Ridge National Lab and a postdoc training at CMU. Lei has a broad interest in the role of defects on the ion transport, interfacial electrochemistries and other exotic properties. He is also curious about the link between continuum-level models and atomistic-level simulations. In the Hautier Group, he aims to figure out the relationship between the defects and the interfacial electrochemical properties. Outside the Lab, Lei likes many things that could make him forget about materials science for a while. Born in a city of Hubei Province near Yangtze River, he enjoys rainy days. His favorite time is an after-rain stroll in the misty forest or near a creek. His favorite material systems are simple oxide crystals (with imperfections, of course!) in fluorite and perovskite lattices, and rutiles recently.

tao.jiang@dartmouth.edu

Tao Jiang obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Central Florida, where his research focused on defect-laden 2D materials for catalysis, as well as spin-crossover and single-molecule magnetism for quantum information applications. Following his PhD, he conducted postdoctoral research at Ames National Laboratory at Iowa State University, specializing in electronic structure and quantum dynamics simulations of materials using both classical and quantum computing approaches. In July 2024, he joined the Hautier Group, where his research centers on high-throughput calculations to study permanent magnets. Originally from Shenyang, China, Tao enjoys movies and traveling.

yang.huang@dartmouth.edu

Yang joined the Hautier group as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in September 2024. He earned his B.S. in Materials Physics from University of Science and Technology Beijing, followed by an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech. His doctoral research encompassed three key areas in computational catalysis: developing reactivity descriptor methods in theoretical heterogeneous catalysis, developing a computational and data-driven framework for modeling high-entropy alloy catalysis, and developing a Bayesian experimental design workflow to discover efficient homogeneous catalysts for polymerization reactions. Yang’s current research interests lie in bridging the gap between modeling and experimentation, leveraging computational simulations and machine learning to accelerate the discovery of novel materials. His current work focuses on identifying new stable electrides through high-throughput computational screening. After work, he enjoys cooking, music and jogging with his dog Fermi.

louis.alaerts.th@dartmouth.edu

Louis joined the Hautier group as a PhD student in September 2020. Originally from Brussels, he obtained his bachelor and his master in Chemistry in 2018 and 2020, respectively, from UCLouvain, Belgium. His master thesis was focused on the study of the mechanisms leading to ferroelectricity in anti-Ruddlesden-Popper structures. He then followed Prof. Hautier to Dartmouth College where he is now working on various topics such as piezoelectricity, ferroelectricity and magnetoelectricity as well as the study of the Stark shift in defects for quantum information science applications. In his free time, Louis likes to play the guitar, soccer and cooking.

andrew.pike.th@dartmouth.edu

Andrew’s research focuses on the thermodynamics of alloys and random solutions for solar power and clean energy technologies and is supported by the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship. Andrew did his undergrad at Northeastern University in chemical engineering and physics and completed coops in analytical chemistry, photovoltaics, and energy storage. Outside of the lab, Andrew is on the Dartmouth Cycling Team and enjoys gardening.

dylan.j.barbagallo.th@dartmouth.edu

Dylan uses both experimental and theoretical materials science methods to develop high-performance permanent magnets without rare-earth elements. He is a native Vermonter who enjoys skiing and the outdoors. After graduating from Suffolk University with a Bachelor’s in Physics, he began his PhD work at Thayer in 2021.