Group Members
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Postdoc, California Institute of Technology, 2018-2021
Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018
B.S. in Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, 2013
Awards and Honors (since joining Yale):
AFOSR Young Investigator Award, 2024
NSF CAREER Award, 2023

Jiachen Li
Postdoc
Member since 2022
Ph.D. in Chemistry, Duke University, 2022
B.S. in Chemistry, Zhejiang University, 2016
Chaoqun Zhang

Ph.D. in Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, 2024
B.S. in Chemistry, Zhejiang University, 2019
Postdoc
Member since 2024

Ke Liao
Postdoc
Member since 2025
Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, 2025
Postdoc, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, 2023-2024
Postdoc, California Institute of Technology, 2022-2023
Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry, International Max Planck Research School for Condensed Matter Science, 2021
B.S. in Physics, Wuhan University, 2015

Katelyn Laughon
Graduate Student
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
Member since 2021
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Tennessee, 2021
A.S. in Chemistry, Roane State Community College, 2018

Christian Venturella
Graduate Student
DOD NDSEG Fellow
Member since 2022
A.B. in Chemistry, Princeton University, 2021

Christopher Hillenbrand
Graduate Student
Member since 2023
M.S. in Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022
B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020

Sander Cohen-Janes
Graduate Student
DOD NDSEG Fellow
Member since 2023
B.S. in Chemistry, Brandeis University, 2023

Pen Chang
Graduate Student
Member since 2023
B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics, Stony Brook University, 2023

Nicholas Hatzis-Schoch
Graduate Student (joint with Elsa Yan)
Member since 2025
A.B. in Physics and Chemistry, Washington University in St. Louis, 2024

Natsume Wu
Undergraduate Student
Member since 2024
Yale College, Class of 2026

Sebastien Lowy
Undergraduate Student
Member since 2023
Yale College, Class of 2026

Simon Britton
Undergraduate Student
Member since 2025
Yale College, Class of 2026
Group Alumni
-
Jincheng Lei (now: postdoc at Stanford SLAC)
(postdoc, 2022-2025)​
-
Ximena Leyva Peralta (now: master student at EU's i-MESC program)
(undergraduate student, 2022-2025)​
-
Jessica Liu
(undergraduate student, 2023-2025)​
-
Mateo Cardenes Wuttig (now: graduate student at Yale Applied Physics)
(summer visiting researcher, 2025)​
-
Yuhang Ai (now: graduate student at Caltech)
(summer undergraduate researcher, 2022)​
-
Jinghong Zhang (now: graduate student at Harvard)
(summer undergraduate researcher, 2022)​
-
Melanie King
(undergraduate student, 2022-2023)
-
Alec Chai
(undergraduate student, 2021-2022)