Fellows
The Columbia Nano Initiative (CNI) Fellowship Program (2016-2025) was established to bring outstanding postdoctoral research scientists with track records of collaborative, interdisciplinary research to Columbia.
Our fellows are experts in fields including chemistry, physics & applied physics, electrical & mechanical engineering, and materials science, and they work across research groups to help advance CNI’s vision of developing the science and technology to drive new generations of nanoscale materials. They are also integral members of Columbia’s National Science Foundation-funded Material Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC); their research contributions were instrumental to the MRSEC’s renewal in September 2020.
At Columbia, our fellows explore new horizons in nanoscale materials, electronics, and photonics. Here, we’d like to introduce our current fellow and highlight our alumni. Here, we’d like to introduce our past and current fellows and highlight a few of our alumni.
CNI Fellows
Daniel Cavlovic
Shantao Han
Raul Hernandez Sanchez
Mehdi Jadidi
Qifeng Jiang
Kyunam Lee
Jeffrey McNeill
Ruiyang Miao
Nicholas Orchanian
Douglas Reed
Dr. Jeffrey McNeill
Our current Fellow, Dr. Jeffrey McNeill, joined Columbia in August 2023. Jeff received a BS in chemistry from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2018 and his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 2023. For his doctoral work, he studied active matter with a particular focus on developing non-equilibrium colloidal systems powered by ultrasound and catalysis.
Jeff is broadly interested in using solid-state molecular materials to tackle problems in quantum information science and to create systems with exotic magnetic, electronic, and thermal properties. This involves blending solution-, surface-, and solid-state chemistry to realize hybrid systems with new functions that can help answer important fundamental questions.
Collaboration is at the core of Jeff’s approach to science, and he is excited to be at Columbia as our current CNI Fellow. He is currently working on several projects with the Roy, Dean, XYZ, and Delor groups, in conjunction with the Nuckolls lab.
Dr. Nicholas Orchanian
Our fourth fellow, Dr. Nicholas Orchanian, joined CNI in 2020—and we’ve kept him onboard as a Research Fellow! Nick is currently advising our industrial partners on the development of organic battery solutions.
Nick’s career started at the University of Southern California; he received his BS in chemistry in 2015 and his PhD in chemistry in 2020. His graduate thesis was on molecular catalysis for the solar fuel production.
As a CNI fellow, Nick helped advance Columbia’s work on using electricity to manipulate chemical reactions, which involved engineering what’s known as a Scanning Tunnel Microscope (STM) break junction—a technique that lets scientists record electrical currents through a single molecule—inside of an air-free glovebox. Nick also has a penchant for outreach and was the co-founder of the popular TikTok, Ivy League Science, which breaks down chemistry to a broader audience.
Why were you interested in the CNI Fellowship?
My freshman chemistry course was taught by Arieh Warshel, who would win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in my sophomore year. He showed that enzymes have powerful electric fields deep inside them that can affect how they catalyze different chemical reactions. Over the years, I kept thinking about how I might bring that concept into a synthetic system. When I learned about Colin Nuckolls’ and Latha Venkatarama’s National Science Foundation-funded Center for Chemistry with Electric Fields, I saw an opportunity to do work that few others were doing, so I applied for the Columbia Nano Initiative Fellowship.
What was your most exciting experience?
In Colin’s lab, I synthesized new organometallic molecules that can catalyze chemical reactions, which I then brought to Latha’s lab to study in her custom-built STMs with STM-based break junction methods. It’s exciting to be at the forefront of research—using force fields for chemistry really does sound like magic.
What's the biggest thing you took away from your Fellowship?
The CNI is so interdisciplinary, which has prepared me for a variety of careers: academic, industry, national labs, publishing…My experience here has given me a lot of qualifications as I move forward.
Dr. Douglas Reed
Our third fellow, Dr. Douglas Read, was appointed in 2018. Doug is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington.
Doug received a BS from Harvard University in 2012 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018. His PhD research was on the synthesis of new metal–organic frameworks capable of small molecule activation, selective gas binding, and adsorbate-induced phase changes.
Doug’s fellowship work on superatoms was critical to Columbia's MRSEC Interdisciplinary Research Group on Superatom Assembled Solids. He developed new ways of controlling the structural and electronic properties of superatoms and used these methods to create single-superatom junctions for potential use in new quantum devices.
Why were you interested in the CNI Fellowship?
As a graduate student, I studied materials chemistry, specifically looking at long-scale interactions between metal centers to make industrial processes more efficient. As a postdoc, I wanted to examine these metal-metal interactions at the nanoscale, which can produce entirely different features than traditional macroscale systems that will likely be the basis for new types of technologies never thought possible. Researchers at the CNI study a class of materials called superatoms, where a collection of atoms can produce different features than those seen in just a single atom. Being able to study these interesting materials, and then utilize them in real nanoscale devices, was made possible by the CNI Fellowship.
What was your proudest moment?
I was involved in a collaboration between the Nuckolls, Roy, Steigerwald, and Venkataraman groups to fabricate electronic devices made with just one molecule between two electrodes. The project initially sounded like science fiction—we were asking a single molecule to act as a full electronic device! We measured the conductance properties of a single superatom and found that the way it moved electrons might make it amenable to nanoscale quantum information applications.
What's the biggest thing you took away from your Fellowship?
The focus on collaboration at the CNI, and at Columbia broadly, made it such a great place to do research. The ability to work with experts in physics, chemistry, and engineering allowed me to learn many different ways of thinking about problems. It also helped push my science forward in so many exciting directions. For example, the project of studying the conductance of a single superatom would never have been possible without the expertise of the Venkataraman group. As I begin my career as a professor, this commitment to collaboration will be a central theme of my lab and something that I pass along to my students.
Dr. Mehdi Jadidi
Our second fellow, Dr. Mehdi Jadidi, was appointed in 2017. He is currently the Team Lead of Optical Design in the R&D Division of PsiQuantum, a quantum computing company.
Mehdi earned BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, in 2011. He completed his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a specialization in Applied Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2016. Before joining CNI, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Maryland’s Photonics Research Lab.
As a CNI Fellow, Mehdi explored the optical properties and potential nanophotonics applications of novel 2D materials.
Why were you interested in the CNI Fellowship?
The CNI Fellowship appealed to me for its unique feature of enabling postdoctoral researchers to define projects and work with multiple research labs of their choice. The provided research funding, in addition to the income, empowered me to acquire essential lab and computer equipment crucial to advancing the projects. The fellowship program granted me a sense of independence, akin to that of a junior faculty member: offering freedom to engage in projects of my choice, collaborate with research labs, and supervise students.
What's the biggest thing you took away from your Fellowship?
During my time at Columbia University, I had the privilege of engaging in research at the intersection of photonics and nanoscale materials, fields in which the university has a strong program. Collaborating with Professors Gaeta, Lipson, and Hone was particularly enriching.
The most significant takeaway from my fellowship was the enhancement of my research and mentorship skills. I established a new research collaboration between Profs Gaeta and Hone's lab and initiated several projects. I involved PhD students through various projects, aiding them in defining and progressing towards their respective PhD dissertations.
Dr. Raul Hernandez Sanchez
Dr. Raúl Hernández Sánchez was appointed our inaugural fellow in 2016. He is now Norman Hackerman Welch Young Investigator, Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of Master’s Degree in Applied Chemical Sciences at Rice University.
[Born in Chihuahua, México, Raúl received a BS in Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry at ITESM Campus Monterrey in 2005. As an undergraduate, he also held research positions at CalTech and the Southern University of Denmark. He completed his PhD in Chemistry at Harvard in 2015; his thesis was on the coordination chemistry and electronic structure of iron clusters.
Raúl led five projects at CNI, including: the development of an all-organic redox flow battery; the analysis and characterization of perylene diimide-based hollow organic semiconductors; the analysis of single-channel single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) ion conduction; multiple-wavelength anomalous diffraction (MAD) studies of polynuclear Co-based clusters; and an industrial collaboration with Rassini. His work at CNI led to nine publications.
Why were you interested in the CNI Fellowship?
It was the perfect platform to broaden my scientific horizons. For example, some of the topics I worked on included contorted aromatics, small molecule sensors, redox flow batteries, advanced crystallography, cluster chemistry, and helical organic compounds.
What was your most inspiring moment?
I am inspired by the interdisciplinarity I witnessed, which helped me build bridges that last to this day. I am grateful for having had the intellectual freedom and support to pursue topics of my own interest.
What's the biggest thing you took away from your Fellowship?
Seeing how Columbia scientists and professors could manage to work towards a unified goal from many different perspectives and with the success of everyone in mind is commendable and worthy of replication—in fact, it’s how I approach my own research group.
Funding for the CNI Fellowship program is available through 2025. We hope to establish an endowment to support fellows in perpetuity.