2026 Program
Event: Ben Augenbraun (Williams College) and Oleg Prezhdo (University Southern California)
When: April 10th, 2026
12-1 PM EST
Registration Link
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Early Career Talk: “Designer Molecules: From Catalytic Insights to Fundamental Symmetry Violation”
Prof. Ben Augenbraun (Williams College)
Biography:
Ben Augenbraun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Williams College. Ben received his B.A. in Physics from Williams College in 2015. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University under the guidance of Prof. John M. Doyle, which was recognized by the 2023 Jankunas Doctoral Dissertation Award in Chemical Physics. Ben joined the faculty of the Williams College in July 2023. He loves teaching both in the classroom and in the research lab. He and his students study molecular laser cooling and high-resolution spectroscopy, especially applied to molecules containing heavy nuclei.
Abstract: Achieving full control over the quantum mechanical degrees of freedom in molecules has been a long-standing goal in chemical physics. The recent advent of molecular laser cooling, including certain polyatomic molecules, has led to new excitement in this area. In this talk, I will describe how molecular spectroscopy plays a critical role in identifying new molecular species that can be controlled and cooled using laser light. I will particularly highlight work by the undergraduate students in my group on gold-containing molecules (AuC and AuPb) and dysprosium monoxide (DyO). These serve as two examples of how chemical intuition allows us to engineer “designer molecules” that are specifically tailored to study a surprisingly broad range of science, spanning organic catalysis to beyond-the-Standard-Model physics.
Talk: “Nonadiabatic Molecular Dynamics of Optoelectronic Materials with Machine Learning”
Oleg Prezhdo (University of Southern California)
Biography: Oleg Prezhdo obtained Diploma in Theoretical Chemistry from Kharkiv University, Ukraine, in the theory group originating from V. A. Fock. He completed PhD within 4 years with Peter Rossky at UT-Austin. After a 1-year postdoc with John Tully at Yale, he joined University of Washington in 1998, achieving Associate and Full Professor in 2002 and 2005. Currently, he is a Guido Daub Professor at the University of New Mexico. He served as Editor in the Journal of Physical Chemistry and Surface Science Reports, and is now an Executive Editor for the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. Recipient of multiple national and international awards, he held visitor positions and professorships in France, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, Japan, China, Korea, Iceland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. With 600 publications, 400 invited talks, and h-index of 100, his research focuses on far-from-equilibrium processes in nanoscale, condensed matter, molecular and biological systems.
Abstract : Nonadiabatic molecular dynamics allows one to model far-from-equilibrium processes in molecular, condensed matter and nanoscale systems at atomistic level and in time-domain as they occur in nature and are studied by time-resolved spectroscopies. Machine learning provides means to greatly increase the simulation timescale and size, and to analyze results, uncovering key phenomena in nanoscale systems.
Liu, Wang, Wu, Vasenko, Prezhdo. “Breaking the size limitation of nonadiabatic molecular dynamics in condensed matter systems with local descriptor machine learning”. PNAS 121, e2403497121 (2024).
Zhang et al. “Advancing nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations in solids with E (3) equivariant deep neural Hamiltonians.” Nature Comm16, 2033 (2025).
Wu, Chu, Wang, Prezhdo. “Atomistic Origin of Microsecond Carrier Lifetimes at Perovskite Grain Boundaries: Machine Learning-Assisted Nonadiabatic Molecular Dynamics.” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 147, 5449 (2025).
Wang, Chu, Wu, Saidi, Prezhdo. “Sub-bandgap charge harvesting and energy up-conversion in metal halide perovskites”. Npj Comp. Mater. 11, 11 (2025).
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