Ohio-Region Section of the American Physical Society

Emily Weiss is the Mark and Nancy Ratner Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, by courtesy, at Northwestern University. She is a co-thrust leader in the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), the Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science (CBES), and the Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center (ANSER). Emily earned her PhD from Northwestern in 2005, advised by Mark Ratner and Michael Wasielewski. Her graduate work focused on magnetic superexchange interactions of radical ion pairs created by electron transfer within organic donor-acceptor systems. Emily did postdoctoral research at Harvard University under George M. Whitesides from 2005-2008 as a Petroleum Research Fund Postdoctoral Energy Fellow, and started her independent career at Northwestern in Fall 2008. The objectives of Emily’s research group are to understand the mechanisms of conversion of energy from one class to another at interfaces, to understand the behavior of quantum confined systems far from equilibrium, and to design and synthesize nanostructures that are new combinations of organic and inorganic components.

Lawrence Anderson-Huang was born in Massachusetts, the son of a recognized academic leader in architecture father and an arts and humanities trained mother. He received his B.S. from Caltech, where he had the good fortune to have Richard Feynman for the last semester of general physics, Linus Pauling for general chemistry, and Tom Apostol for elementary calculus. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1977, where he created a numerical technique to model stellar atmospheres having a strong flux of X-rays incident from the orbiting black hole in the recently discovered X-ray binary stars. More recently, he has become interested in the intersection of the sciences and the arts, having come to the conclusion that they are inextricably bound both by philosophy and method, differing only in the tools used.

Dr. Markus Gloeckler currently serves as the Chief Scientist at First Solar, Inc. First Solar is a fully integrated provider of Photovoltaic (PV) solutions, the largest manufacturer of thin-film solar panels in the world, and the largest PV manufacturer in the U.S.  Dr. Gloeckler oversees the research functions, which tackle intricate and fundamental problems of thin-film device physics, from deposition of the semiconductor on glass, to encapsulation, and product reliability.  First Solar has been able to increase the efficiency entitlement of CdTe PV by demonstrating cell efficiencies up to 22%.  Dr. Gloeckler received a PhD from Colorado State University and after more than 15 years in the field, continuous to marvel at the complexity of the device physics of thin-film materials.

Carolyn Raithel is a 4th year PhD candidate at the University of Arizona. Before moving to sunny Tucson, she received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota in 2015. She is currently an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and P.E.O. Scholar (P.E.O. = Philanthropic Educational Organization). Her research focuses on neutron stars, which are among the densest objects in the universe. In particular, she is interested in what astrophysical observations (e.g., of masses, radii, or gravitational waves) can tell us about their interior structure.