Matt Pharr
Texas A&M University; Mechanical Engineering Dept.
(Co-Lead, Early-Stage Investigator Professional Development)
Pharr is an associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. Pharr directs a solid mechanics research group in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M.
John Ponis
John got his B.S. in Chemistry from Kutztown University in 2011 and worked in industry, formulating metalworking fluids for International Chemical Company in Philadelphia until joining the Banerjee Research Group at Texas A&M University in 2020. John uses topochemical ion-exchange reactions to synthesize metastable transition metal oxide neuromorphic materials, and studies the atomic and electronic structural origins of their transport instabilities via X-ray scattering and spectroscopy. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking, biking, studying post-industrial ideological history, and getting out of doors with his wife Caitlin and infant son Ansel.
Xiaofeng Qian
Texas A&M University; Materials Science and Engineering Dept.
Qian is an associate professor in Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Qian leads a research group on theory and simulation at Texas A&M.
Benjamin Rogers
Benjamin Rogers is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow in Dr. Sarbajit Banerjee’s group at Texas A&M University. Ben hails from Austin, Texas and received his bachelor degrees from University of Texas at Austin. Ben currently uses scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to study vanadium oxide interfaces. Additionally, Ben is receiving training to use Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy (STXM) to understand the fragmentation mechanisms of vanadium oxides.
Arunabha Mohan Roy
Arunabha’s research interests are computational material science, computational mechanics, phase field method, crystal plasticity modelling, materials design, data-driven model discovery, machine/deep learning, and physics informed neural networks.
Alejandro Aviles Sanchez
Alex received his Ph.D. in Chemical Science at the Universidad Autónoma de México in 2022. His research interests include neuromorphic materials.
Sarnali Sanfui
Sarnali has been working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University under the supervision of Prof. Marcetta Y. Darensbourg since June 2023. Her research work is primarily focused on the design, synthesis, and electrocatalytic application of novel bimetallic and multimetallic complexes, inspired by the biological metalloenzymes such as [Fe-Fe] hydrogenase and nitrile hydratase. She earned her Ph.D. (2023) from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. Subsequently, she transitioned to her postdoctoral role in Prof. M. Darensbourg’s Group to further advance her expertise in the field of bioinorganic chemistry.
Patrick Shamberger
Texas A&M University; Materials Science and Engineering Dept.
(Co-Lead Thrust 1)
Shamberger is an associate professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. Prior to this, he served as a materials research engineer for the Air Force Research Lab in the Nanoelectronic Materials Branch.
Akhil Singh
Akhil is a postdoctoral research associate in the Darensbourg Group at Texas A&M University, where he joined in 2024. His cutting-edge research centers on designing innovative bimetallic and trimetallic complexes that replicate the sophisticated functionalities of metalloenzymes like [NiFe] and [FeFe] hydrogenases. Dr. Akhil earned his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, and subsequently embarked on a postdoctoral journey in Europe with Professor Peter Roesky at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. In 2022, he moved to the United States, where he continued his postdoctoral research at the University of Alabama before bringing his expertise to Texas A&M.