Tisdale Lab @ MIT

nanoscale energy transport

MIT

People

Professor Will Tisdale

Professor William A. Tisdale

Group Leader

tisdale@mit.edu | ChemE Faculty Page | CV | video profile
Office: 66-458
Phone: 617.253.4975 | Fax: 617.258.5766

Will Tisdale is Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, where he has been teaching and leading a research team since 2012. His research program is focused on the discovery of hybrid organic-inorganic nanomaterials capable of transporting energy in new ways, and on the use and development of ultrafast laser spectroscopy methods and advanced optical microscopy techniques for probing dynamics at the nanoscale.

Will’s contributions to research have been recognized by the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the DOE Early Career Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the AIChE NSEF Young Investigator Award, and a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award.

For his dedication to undergraduate teaching Will has received MIT’s highest honor, the MacVicar Fellowship, as well as the student-selected Baker Award, the School of Engineering’s Amare Bose Award, and he is a 7-time recipient of the C. Michael Mohr Undergraduate Teaching Award, which is voted annually by the Chemical Engineering undergraduate students at MIT.

Will graduated magna cum laude from the University of Delaware in 2005, earning an Honors B.S. in Chemical Engineering, with Distinction, and minoring in Economics. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 2010, then studied as a postdoctoral associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT before joining the faculty in Chemical Engineering in 2012.

Will and his wife, Alison – who works in Cambridge area biotech – are the proud parents of two amazing girls.


Barbara Balkwill

Administrative Assistant

balkwill@mit.edu
Office: 66-458
Phone: 617.258.7026 | Fax: 617.258.5766


Nannan Mao

Postdoc

maonnmyh@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Nannan began working in the group in February 2018 as a Postdoctoral Associate. Originally from China, Nannan received her PhD in Physical Chemistry from Peking University in June 2016 for her work on Raman spectroscopic and optical anisotropic investigation of two-dimensional black phosphorus crystals with Professor Jin Zhang and Professor Lianming Tong. Her current focus in Tisdale lab is non-linear optical effects and exciton dynamics of two-dimensional materials. Nannan is co-advised by Professor Jing Kong in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science


Chana Honick

Postdoc

chonick@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Chana joined the group as a postdoc in January 2022. She received a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2016 and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in the lab of Prof. Art Bragg in 2021. At JHU, she used ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to study the structure-dependent photodynamics of photoswitchable and supramolecular materials. Her current work in the Tisdale lab uses ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to study exciton dynamics in semiconductor nanomaterials.


Seryio Saris

Postdoc

ssaris@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Seryio joined the group in January 2023 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Originally from Turkey, he received a PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from EPFL, Switzerland in the lab of Prof. Raffaella Buonsanti in 2020. At EPFL, he worked on developing strategies to utilize perovskite nanocrystals in photo-induced chemical transformations. Seryio then expanded his background with an initial postdoc experience at LMU, Munich in the group of Prof. Emiliano Cortes, investigating dynamic processes in 2D materials with scattering microscopy tools. As a recipient of an SNSF Postdoctoral Fellowship, his current focus in the Tisdale lab is on studying exciton dynamics and diffusion in hybrid nanosystems via transient spectroscopy and microscopy techniques.


Woo Seok Lee

PhD Student

wslee512@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Woo Seok joined the group in December 2019 as a PhD student in Materials Science and Engineering. Originally from South Korea, he holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Korea University where he worked on development of colloidal-nanocrystal based electronic devices. His current research interest in Tisdale Lab is in the synthesis, characterization, and application of novel low dimensional materials. He is a recipient of the SBS Foundation Scholarship.


Narumi Nagaya

PhD Student

naruminw@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Narumi joined the group in December 2019 as a PhD student in Chemical Engineering. Originally from Hong Kong and Japan, she graduated from Imperial College London in 2019 with a MEng in Chemical Engineering with a Year Abroad at Columbia University in the City of New York. At Imperial, she worked on mechanocatalysis of lignocellulose with Dr. Roberto Rinaldi, whilst at Columbia, she worked with Professor Ioannis Kymissis on organic electronic devices. She has also spent her summers abroad at Kyoto University and EPFL where she worked on OPVs and quasi-2D perovskites, respectively. In the Tisdale Lab, Narumi is currently working on studying interfacial dynamics in solar cells using ultrafast spectroscopy. She is co-advised by Professor Marc Baldo in EECS.


Eliza Price

PhD Student

ekprice@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Eliza joined the group in August 2021 as a PhD student in Chemical Engineering. She is originally from Denton, TX and graduated from Texas A&M University in 2020 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Materials Science and Engineering. Eliza worked in Professor Micah Green’s lab for three years while studying at A&M, investigating scalable functionalization methods of Graphene Oxide. She also worked as a co-op at Marathon Petroleum Corporation and Baker Engineering and Risk Consultants. Eliza is co-advised by Professor James Swan in Chemical Engineering and is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her current work focuses on the self-assembly of colloidal quantum dot superlattices.


Thomas Sheehan

PhD Student

tsheeh@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Thomas joined the group in January 2022. He grew up in Northern Virginia, and he graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2020 with a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. At UIUC, he worked on the development of LCMS-based high-throughput screening methods for catalysts in organic synthesis under Prof. David Sarlah and on the selective electrochemical removal of heavy metal ions from water under Prof. Xiao Su. In the Tisdale lab, he is studying the diffusion of excitons in perovskite quantum dots using transient spectroscopy techniques.


Niamh Brown

PhD Student

nlbrown@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Niamh joined the group in November 2021 as a PhD student in chemistry. She graduated summa cum laude from University of Colorado, Boulder in 2021 with a B.A. in chemistry and a minor in mathematics. Niamh worked in Professor Michael Marshak’s lab synthesizing and characterizing novel heavy metal complexes for use in organic light emitting diodes. She also worked in Professor Gordana Dukovic’s lab on characterizing trap states in cadmium sulfide quantum dots. Niamh is co-advised by Professor Moungi Bawendi in chemistry and is interested in using ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to explore exciton dynamics in colloidal semiconductor nanomaterials. She is the recipient of the Robert T. Haslam Presidential Fellowship.


Maya Chattoraj

PhD Student

mchatt@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Maya joined the group in November 2022 as a PhD student in Physical Chemistry. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in May 2022 with a B.S. in Chemistry. At UIUC, she worked on plasmon-assisted electrocatalytic CO­2 reduction with bimetallic gold-copper nanoparticles under Prof. Prashant Jain. In the Tisdale lab, Maya synthesizes perovskite nanomaterials and studies their energy transfer using ultrafast spectroscopy.


Nicholas Samulewicz

PhD Student

nsamulew@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Nicholas joined the group in November 2022 as a PhD student in Chemical Engineering. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Delaware with an Honors B.ChE. in Chemical Engineering. At UD, Nick worked under Dr. Dion Vlachos on upcycling herbaceous biomass into electrochemical catalysts and breaking down lignin into monomers. He also worked as a co-op at DuPont Water Solutions R&D on method development for HPLC purification of oligonucleotides for use as gene therapeutics. As a senior, he led UD’s RAPID ChemE Cube team to a national victory during its inaugural competition, which involved modularizing in-home water purification. In the Tisdale Group, Nick’s work is in the synthesis, characterization, and application of metal-organic chalcogenolates. He is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.


Jimin Kwag

PhD Student

jkwag@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Jimin joined the group in November 2023 as a PhD student in Chemical Engineering. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Seoul National University. She worked on investigation of structural degradation of fuel cell catalysts via transmission electron microscopy in Professor Jungwon Park’s lab. In the Tisdale lab, she focuses on neutron and X-ray scattering investigation of nanocrystal self-assembly.


Justin Griffith

PhD Student

jgriff13@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Justin joined the group in November 2023 as a PhD student in Chemical Engineering. He graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University in June 2023 with a B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering and a minor in Computer Science. At Northwestern, Justin worked on developing high-throughput mechanical testing methods for bulk soft materials in Prof. Muzhou Wang’s lab. In the Tisdale lab, he is investigating charge and ion transport in halide perovskites for applications in solar photovoltaics. Justin is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.


Giulia Lo Gerfo Morganti

Visiting PhD Student

logmorg@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Giulia joined the group in March 2024 as a Visiting PhD student in Photonics. She holds a summa cum laude BSc and MSc in Physical Chemistry, obtained jointly from the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa, Italy. During her BSc, she worked at EMBEDLAB as a computational chemist to characterize charge-transfer states of conjugated molecules. She transitioned to experiments during her MSc, splitting her time between the NEST Lab in Pisa and KU Leuven in Belgium, focusing on photochemistry and super-resolution microscopy. Combining energy transfer with microscopy, she ultimately joined the group of Prof. Niek van Hulst at ICFO, Barcelona, Spain, as a PhD student with a project on spatiotemporal tracking of exciton diffusion in light-harvesting materials. Co-hosted by Prof. William Tisdale and Prof. Gabriela Schlau-Cohen, her focus at MIT is on the link between energy transfer and structure in photosynthetic complexes.


Guilherme Bejar

Undergraduate Student

guib@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Gui joined the group in June 2023 as an undergraduate researcher under Eliza Price. Originally from Windermere, Florida, he is currently a chemical engineering student concentrating in energy related studies at MIT. His current research interest in the Tisdale lab is the characterization and understanding of the 1H-NMR behavior of mixed ligand PbS nanocrystals.


Daniela Montes

Undergraduate Student

dm103@mit.edu
Office: 66-216
Phone: 617.324.9637

Daniela joined the group in October 2023 as an undergraduate researcher under Woo Seok Lee and Nick Samulewicz. She is a chemistry major at Wellesley College, with an interest in material science and renewable energy. In the Tisdale lab, her current focus is developing synthetic methods for metal-organic chalcogenolates.


FORMER GROUP MEMBERS

 

Name Tisdale Lab Position Alum Since Current Position Location
Lisa Poulikakos Masters 2013 Assistant Professor UC San Diego
Ferry Prins Postdoc 2014 Assistant Professor Autonoma de Madrid
Pooja Tyagi Postdoc 2014
Robert Keitel Masters 2015 R&D Engineer Sensirion
Jolene Mork PhD 2016 Data Science Manager Reddit, Inc.
Michael Seitz Masters 2016 Research Scientist Spiden
Mark Weidman PhD 2016 Principal Engineer Lumotive
Dan Congreve Postdoc 2016 Assistant Professor
Stanford
Leo Spiegel Masters 2017 Engineer UBS
Deepankur Thureja Masters 2017 PhD Student ETH Zurich
Rachel Gilmore PhD 2017 Engineer Creare LLC
Yunan Gao Postdoc 2017 Assistant Professor Peking University
Alexia Stollmann Masters 2018 PhD Student ETH Zurich
Elizabeth M.Y. Lee PhD 2018 Assistant Professor UC Irvine
Aaron Aster (Goodman) PhD 2018 Data Science Engineer Indigo
Alex Hernandez Oendra Masters 2018 PhD Student ETH Zurich
Matt Ashner PhD 2019 Machine Learning Engineer Electromagnetic Systems, Inc.
Nabeel Dahod PhD 2019
Katie Mauck Postdoc 2019 Assistant Professor Kenyon College
Katie Shulenberger PhD 2019 Assistant Professor Brandeis University
Dahin Kim Postdoc 2019 Postdoc University of Pennsylvania
Makhsud Saidaminov Visiting Scientist 2019 Assistant Professor University of Victoria
Sam Winslow PhD 2020 Director of Product Dev. LiquiGlide
Kris Williams Postdoc 2020
Abigail Rae Taussig PhD 2021 Materials Engineer II Form Energy
Seung Kyun”SK”Ha PhD 2021 Postdoc MIT
Watcharaphol “Oat” Paritmongkol PhD 2021 Assistant Professor VISTEC, Thailand
Wenbi Shcherbakov-Wu PhD 2022 Consultant Boston Consulting Group
Tomoaki Sakurada Visiting Scientist 2022 Research Scientist AGC
Fabio Marangi Visiting Student 2022 PhD Student Politecnico di Milano
Eric Powers PhD 2023 Senior Researcher ASML
Ruomeng Wan PhD 2023 Associate McKinsey & Company
Tejas Deshpande Masters 2024 PhD Student EPFL