Former Lab Members
Professor Erin Iski
During her doctorate Erin molecular chiral assembly and molecular motifs of pharmaceutically relavent compounds on the low temperature STM. She also investigated ultra-stable metal halide layers by EC-STM and co-organized the Sykes Group Outreach program for local high schools. She attended Tufts from 2005-2011. She is now an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Tulsa.
Professor Ashleigh Baber
In her doctorate Ashleigh studied the electronic and geometric structure of Pd/Au alloys and their active sites on an atomic scale using STM. She also investigated both the fundamentals of molecular adsorption on metals, and naturally chiral surfaces with a low temperature STM. She attended Tufts from 2005-2011. After working as a research fellow at Brookhaven National Labs, Ashleigh is now an assistant professor at James Madison University.
Dr. Heather Tierney
In her doctorate Heather studied molecular rotors, self assembly, and alloy surfaces on the LT-STM. She is currently Managing Editor for ACS Nano and Nano Letters for the American Chemical Society. She attended Tufts from 2006-2010.
Dr. Mahy El-Kouedi
Mahy was a visiting Professor from UNC-Charlotte. She is now an Assistant Dean at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Michael Laha
Michael was in the chemistry department. He studied the behaviour of dipolar molecules on Au(111) and Cu(111) surfaces. He plans to pursue a PhD after graduating from Tufts.
Darin Bellisario
Darin was a Chemical Engineering student at Tufts. He studied thioether self assembly at elevated temperatures and the adsorption of catalytic metals on chiral surfaces. He is currently attending graduate school at MIT.
Stephen Jensen
Stephen was an undergraduate Chemistry major at Tufts. He was working on the UHV-STM investigating the effect of quantum confinement on molecular adsorption. He is now pursuing post-bachelor's education at Harvard University.
Allister McGuire
Allister was a senior in the chemistry department at Tufts. He worked on the molecular rotors project. He will be pursuing graduate studies at Stanford University.
Dr. Georgios Kyriakou
Georgios Kyriakou received his PhD from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Richard Lambert. He continued as a post doctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge. At Tufts he was a Research Assistant Professor and is currently Lecturer at University of Hull, UK.
Dr. April Jewell
April received her BS in Chemistry from George Washington University. Her work involved the self-assembly of small molecules on metal surfaces. The goal of her research was to understand how changing molecular functionality affects how molecules interact with each other and the underlying surface.
Dr. Matthew Boucher
Matt was a collaborating graduate student from Professor Flytzani-Stephanopoulos' group in the Chemical Engineering Department. He received his Master's degree from the University of Connecticut. He worked on controlling nanoscale catalytic particle nucleation and growth, selective hydrogenations and methanol oxidation.
Brian Mernoff
Brian worked on chiral molecule adsorption and now is a chemistry teacher at Medford High School. He attended Tufts from 2012-2014.
Dr. Timothy Lawton
Tim received his BS in Chemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His worked on mapping curved crystals on the VT-STM and studying naturally chiral metal surfaces as well as the restructuring of surfaces due to molecular adsorption. Tim also worked on the surface structures of methanol and the behavior of adsorbates leading to surface explosions. Tim is currently a research fellow at the Natick Army labs. He attended Tufts from 2008-2013.
Michael Mattera
Mike received his BA in Chemistry from Assumption College. Mike had constructed a TPD chamber and worked on Pd alloy systems on both the LT-STM and TPD. He attended Tufts from 2011-2013 and is now working at Novartis.
Mishan Blecher
Mishan was an undergraduate chemistry major at Tufts. He worked on the rotors project and the epitaxial growth of alloy systems. He now works at the medical software company Epic.
Dr. Emily Lewis
Emily received her BS/MS in chemistry from Northeastern University. Her research was aimed at studying the reactivity of Co nanostructures on Cu with respect to Fischer–Tropsch synthesis and Ullmann coupling reactions using the LT-STM and TPD. Emily attended Tufts from 2009-2014, she now works as an ACS Congressional Fellow.
Dr. Alex Pronschinske
Alex obtained his PhD in physics from North Carolina State University in Professor Dan Dougherty's lab. Alex worked as a post-doctorate fellow in the Sykes lab from 2013-2015, focused primarily on the radiation project.
Rezwan Ali
Rezwan worked in the Sykes lab as a high school student Medford High School. He worked primarily on the rotor and chirality projects. He is now attending the University of New Hampshire.
Dr. Colin Murphy
Colin received his BS degree in Analytical Chemistry from the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland. His research focused on the rotor project, directional transport of surface adsorbates, and comparitive studies of molecular adsorption and dynamics on surfaces using the LT-STM and TPD. Colin is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden
Ben Weilerstein
Ben worked in the lab as an undergraduate majoring in chemistry at Tufts. His work was focused on the molecular rotors project and website design.
Dr. Felicia Lucci
Felicia received her BA in Chemistry from Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. Her thesis focused on Pt and Pd alloys with Cu and Au and their reactivity and selectivity in regards to hydrogenation and oxidation reactions on the VT-STM and TPD. Felicia attended Tufts from 2011-2016, and is now an MRS Congressional Fellow.
Dr. Zhitao Wang
Zhitao obtained his PhD in physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His work focused on Ni/Au and Ni/Cu alloy system on the LT-STM. Zhitao is now working at Janis Research Company.
Dr. Matthew Marcinkowski
Matthew received his BS in Chemistry from University of New Hampshire. He worked on selective hydrogenations, corking effects, the decomposition of formic acid, and C-H activation over SAAs on TPD and the LT-STM. Matthew is now working at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Dr. Natalie Wasio
Natalie obtained her PhD in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame in Professor Alex Kandel's lab. She worked on the rotors project and is now working in sales for SPECS.
Melissa Liriano
Melissa received her BS in Chemistry from University of Massachusetts Boston. Her work focused on the rotors project and chiral templating by molecular adsorption on the LT-STM and TPD.
Christopher Ivimey
Chris is an undergraduate chemistry major at Tufts. His work focused on the rotors project and probing single atom alloy catalysts.
Mostafa El Soda
Mostafa recieved his BS at The American University in Cairo. He was working on new alloy systems on the LT-STM and TPD.
Chloe Wong
Chloe is an undergraduate chemical engineering student at Tufts. She is currently working on the rotors project.
Dr. Andrew Therrien
Andrew received his BS in Chemistry from Saint Michael's College. His thesis focused on charaterizing thin film oxides as a model for studying supported single atom catalysts. He is now working as a post-doc in chemical engineering at UC Santa Barbara under Prof. Phillip Christopher.
Dr. Ted Thuening
Ted received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in professor Wilfred Tysoe's lab. He investigated SAA surfaces in TPD.
Matthew Uhlman
Matthew received his BS in chemistry from Allegheny College. He worked on PdAu single atom alloys.
Benjamin Coughlin, 6th Year
Ben received his BA in Physics and Chemistry from Middlebury College. His thesis focused on the radiation project.
Dr. Amanda Larson
Amanda obtained her PhD in Physics from the University of New Hampshire in Professor Karsten Pohl's lab. Her primary focus was on the chirality project.
Dr. Dipna Patel
In her doctorate work, Dipna studies the surface structure of NiCu, PtAg, and PdAg single-atom alloys using LT-STM. She is now a post-doctoral researcher at A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institue in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Dr. Alex Schilling
In his doctorate Alex studied the chiral properties of the "29" oxide, as well as catalytically relevant Pt and Rh atoms on and under it. He is now at Seagate Technology working with scanning electron microscopes.
Dr. Tedros Balema
Tedros received his BA from Bard College in Chemistry. He is currently a scientist in analytical development for Kaleido Biosciences, Inc.
Dr. Laura Cramer
Laura received her BS from Virigina Tech in Chemistry and Biochemistry and her MS from New Jersey Institute of Technology. She is now working on e-beam lithography at Intel.
Dr. Ryan Hannagan
Ryan received a double major in Chemistry and Environmental Science from UMass Lowell. He investigated new RhCu single atom alloys for dehydrogenation reactions.
Dr. Paul Kress
Paul received his BA from St. John's University in Chemistry. He worked on silver based single atom alloys using TPD. He is now a senior procesing engineer at TKD.
Yunfan (Helen) Chen
Helen received her BA from College of the Holy Cross in Chemistry. She worked on the LT-STM, and now works as a formulation research associate at Selecta BioScience.
Dr. Volkan Cinar
Volkan received a double major in chemistry and chemical engineering at Bogazici University. As a graduate student he studied supported metal atoms on well defined oxides using TPD. He now works as a post doc in the research lab of Prof. Sylvia Ceyer.
Dr. Yicheng Wang
Yicheng earned a BS in Metallurgical Engineering from Kunming University of Science and Technology. He subsequently completed a MS in Applied Chemistry (specializing in electrochemistry) at Tianjin University. He worked on Cu-based two-dopant single-atom alloys. Yicheng is now a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University.
Allison Zupan
Allison received her BS in chemistry from the University of Connecticut. She worked using the Infinity STM to study Au based SAAs.
Dr. Audrey Dannar
Audrey received her BA from Reed College in chemistry. She worked on the VT-STM to model catalytic systems. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher with the Reece Group at the Rowland Institute.