Principal Investigator

Dr. Prashun Gorai

 

Dr. Gorai is a research assistant professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). He is a participating faculty in the Materials Science Program and has a joint appointment in the Materials Science Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He obtained his BTech from IIT Madras (India) in 2008 and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2014. He was a postdoctoral fellow at CSM and NREL from 2014-2017.

 

Google Scholar   Email: pgorai [at] mines [dot] edu

Research Associate

Dr. Cheng-Wei Lee


Cheng-Wei is a research associate in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019, and his Master’s degree from Cornell University in 2014. Cheng-Wei’s work focuses on the discovery of new tetrahedral ferroelectric materials and understanding the effect of defects and dopants on ion transport in solid electrolytes.  

 

Google Scholar    Email: clee2 [at] mines [dot] edu

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr. Rinkumoni (Rinku) Chaliha

Rinku is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. She has a Ph.D. in computational chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India). She holds a Master’s degree from Tezpur University (India). Rinku’s postdoctoral research centers on the design and understanding of novel Zintl phases using graph neural networks and ab initio methods. In her free time, she finds pleasure in hiking in the mountains. 

 

Email: rinkumoni [dot] chaliha [at] mines [dot] edu

Dr. Neha Yadav

 

Neha is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. She obtained her Master’s from the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar (India) in 2017 followed by her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry in 2022. Neha’s postdoctoral research focuses on the discovery and design of tetrahedral ferroelectrics and multiferroics. She loves crafts, painting, and is a fitness enthusiast enjoying her time in the gym and running.

Graduate Researchers

Michael Toriyama

 

Michael is a PhD student in Jeff Snyder‘s group at Northwestern University, with a Bachelors in Materials Science and Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He studies the defect chemistry of thermoelectric materials and models the electronic structure of topological insulators. He enjoys running, playing chess, and cuddling with his cat Newton.

 

Google Scholar    Email: mathtoriyama [at] gmail [dot] com

Nguyen Xuan Thi

 

 

Thi is a Ph.D. student, with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Applied Chemistry from the Kyushu University, Japan. Her graduate research will focus on the discovery of new wurtzite-type ferroelectrics and developing design rules for future engineering of this new class of ferroelectrics. Outside of work, she enjoys making handcrafts, karaoke, and drawing.

Group Alumni

Dr. Manish Kumar Kothakonda (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-2023)

Dr. Naseem Ud Din (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-2023)

Dr. Shubham Pandey (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2020-2021), Currently: Materials Design Inc.

Adam N. Carranco (Undergraduate Researcher, 2021-2022), Currently: SULI intern (NREL)

Abigail Sherman (Undergraduate Researchers, 2022)

Alvaro Gonzales (DOE SULI Undergraduate Intern at NREL, 2022)

Henley Sartin (NSF-REU Undergraduate Researcher from Harvey Mudd College, 2020)

Mitchell Koerner (Citrine NextGen Undergraduate Research Fellow from UCSB, 2018)