Hsing-Ta "Theta" Chen
Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Biography
Selected Awards
2016 Sackler Postdoctoral Fellow, Tel Aviv University
2013-2014 Columbia-Upjohn Fellow
2010 Student Thesis Award, Taiwan Physical Society
Education
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame |
| 2017-2022 | Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Pennsylvania |
| 2016 | Ph.D. in Chemical Physics, Columbia University |
| 2010 | M.S. in Physics, National Taiwan University |
| 2006 | B.S. in Mathematics and Physics, National Taiwan University |
Research Interests
The Chen research group is broadly interested in the intersection of chemistry, physics, and materials. Research in the Chen group focuses on developing theoretical tools and using high performance computing facilities aimed at excited-state dynamics and light-matter interactions. The systems studied range from plasmonic excitation of metallic clusters, laser-driven non-adiabatic molecular dynamics, and collective optical response of molecular ensembles. These systems are of key importance for understanding many recent experimental advances that cannot be accurately predicted by current theoretical approaches.
Our focus is quantifying electron transfer and energy conversion processes at the interface between molecules and materials strongly interacting with light. We are particularly interested in non-adiabatic dynamics methods (specifically surface hopping) and many-body quantum simulation (for example, quantum Monte Carlo). Our major goal is to develop reliable theoretical models and simulation methods to guide experimental improvements in next-generation photovoltaic cells and facilitate new design principles for electronic nano-devices.