Meet our New Faculty: Dr. Ryan Chiechi
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Ryan Chiechi has joined our team as Associate Professor effective January 2022.
Ryan Chiechi received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Oregon, after which he received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles designing and synthesizing organic semiconductors under the guidance of Fred Wudl in 2005. He then moved to Harvard University for a postdoctoral fellowship with Geroge Whitesides, where he worked on many projects, including charge transport through self-assembled monolayers. In 2009 he started his independent career at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
The Chiechi Group combines organic synthesis, molecular self-assembly, and nanofabrication to design and study organic materials that conduct and generate electricity in different contexts. They pioneered the use of eutectic Ga-In to form molecular junctions in which they have studied and exploited quantum tunneling phenomena to construct devices that store and process information from chemical, optical and electrical inputs. They have been leaders in the development of conjugated polymers and small-molecules for applications in bio/organic photovoltaics and thermoelectrics.
Dr. Chiechi has published over 100 papers. He was the recipient of the European Commission’s prestigious ERC Starting Grant. He was instrumental in the formation of the FOM Focus Group Groningen, which is one of only two such centers funded by the Dutch Research Council. He is helping to grow the Carbon Electronics Cluster at NC State, both scientifically and academically.
