Principal Investigator:
Jacob H. Olshansky

Prof. Olshansky (he/him/his) grew up in Urbana, Illinois, where he got his start in scientific research by spending summers in the research corn fields of the University of Illinois. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Physics from Haverford College (’12) where he worked in Alex Norquist’s solid state chemistry group, studying the hydrothermal syntheses of amine-templated metal oxides. He then moved to California to pursue his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at UC Berkeley. His dissertation research aimed to understand the mechanism of charge transfer from photoexcited quantum dots and was advised by Paul Alivisatos. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Northwestern University under the guidance of Michael Wasielewski. At Northwestern, he studied spin dynamics of photogenerated charges in synthetic DNA. He joined the Amherst College community in the summer of 2020.

Current members

Dr. Eunbyeol Gi

Postdoctoral researcher

(she/her/hers)

From: Gwangju, South Korea

Fun fact: I enjoy classical music! Sometimes I travel to different cities only to attend great classical concerts.

Favorite wavelength of light: 500 nm

Frida Hernandez ’24

Research Technician and Lab Manager

(she/her/hers)

From: California and Virginia

Fun fact: I am the oldest out of five children, and I am also the first person in my entire extended family to attend a four-year college

Favorite wavelength of light: 600 nm

Amisha Jain ’25

(she/her/hers)

From: Charlotte, North Carolina

Fun fact: I like travelling and foreign languages, and I love spicy foods.

Favorite wavelength of light: 510 nm

 

Maggie Yang ’25

(she/her/hers)

From: Rome, NY and Bridgeport, PA

Fun fact: I love K-Pop, so much so that I started K:NETICS Dance Crew here at Amherst.

Favorite wavelength of light: 580 nm

 

Kyle Hur ’25

(he/him/his)

From: Southern California

Fun fact: I am a big fan of red bean mochi bread, and I love using emojis

Favorite wavelength of light: 425 nm

Britney Jiang ’25

(she/her/hers)

From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Fun fact: My favorite genres of movies are coming of age and horror, and I’m obsessed with anything that’s seasonal flavor.

Favorite wavelength of light: 600 nm

Shirley Fu ’26

(she/her/hers)

From: Chongqing, China

Fun fact: Enjoy food! Foodie. Enjoy savoring small moments in life.

Favorite wavelength of light: 660 nm

Yurii Sulima ’26

(he/him/his)

From: Poltava, Ukraine

Fun fact: Although I am a sophomore, I have already studied in three universities / colleges (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Riga Technical University, Amherst College). Also, I had a summer job as a graphical design engineer in Latvia working mostly on creating mounting and component change instructions.

Favorite wavelength of light: 460 nm

Fiona Cho ’27

(she/her/hers)

From: Palos Verdes, CA

Fun fact: I love walking, and randomly walked to all of the elementary schools in my district in one week in July 2022. It was 90 miles and over 200k steps. Fittingly, I don’t have my driver’s license.

Favorite wavelength of light: 400 nm

Richard Lin ’27

(he/him/his)

From: San Jose, CA

Fun fact: I like trivia, but I know very little about pop music or sports. Also, if I had to pick, my favorite book would be Catch-22.

Favorite wavelength of light: 530 nm

The away team (Summer 2024)

Stella Yuan ’26

(she/her/hers)

From: Milton, MA

Fun fact: I watch many black-and-white movies, and I heat the milk in the bowl before adding cereal.

Favorite wavelength of light: 700 nm

Caleb Savoie ’26

(he/him/his)

From: New Orleans, LA

Fun fact: I love Jazz, especially the New Orleans style. I play Alto, Tenor, and Soprano Saxophone. I also have a twin brother

Favorite wavelength of light: 490 nm

Kaela Liu ’26

(she/her/hers)

From: San Diego, CA

Fun fact: I love watching indie movies and enjoy boba tea.

Favorite wavelength of light: 450 nm

 

Former members

Thesis Students

Nejc Nagelj ’21, Chemistry Ph.D. program at Harvard

Max Hoffman ’22, Chemistry Ph.D. program at the University of Washington

Troy Colleran ’22, Materials Science Ph.D. program at University of Colorado, Boulder

Shoshanna Peifer ’23, Chemistry Ph.D. program at Northwestern University

Karime Hernandez-Perez ’24, Chemistry Ph.D. program at Stanford University

Autumn Lee ’24, Materials Science Ph.D. program at Stanford University

Other Students

Hyery Yoo ’22

Hasham Warrich ’23

Sonja Lazovic ’22

Daniya Ali ’25

Jovan Markovic ’25 (MIT)

Hasun Noh ’25

Shani Getz ’26