Dr. Seogjoo J. Jang
Theoretical and Computational Chemistry – Physical Chemistry, Photonics, and Nanoscience
Current Group Members
Pablo Ramos
Dr Ramos was born in Colombia where he received his Bachelors degree in Chemistry. He then pursued his PhD at Rutgers University with Prof. Pavanello. He then continued his research with a postdoctoral position with the Pavanello Group, and he has currently joined Professor Seogjoo Jang at Queens College, CUNY.
Education
BS in Chemistry, Universidad Distrital, Colombia
Phd in Chemistry, Rutgers University
Research Interests
Dr Pablo Ramos is interested in exciton and charge transfer mechanisms and apply them to the discovery of new materials and biological processes. He is also interested in quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics simulations, and the application of machine learning techniques to chemistry problems.
Email: @qc.cuny.edu
Dr Marta Kowalczyk
Dr. Marta Kowalczyk obtained her MS at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Harry D. Gafney and Seogjoo Jang. After her post-doctoral appointment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory(BNL) in the Artificial Photosynthesis Group, she worked on new capacitors’ development in California. She is currently teaching in the Natural Sciences Department of Laguardia Community College, CUNY.
Education
Phd in Chemistry, GC College, CUNY
MS Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
Research Interests
Dr Kowalczyk is interested in Photochemistry of inorganic and organic compounds, charge transfer complexes, artificial photosynthesis, and conjugated polymers for use in photovoltaic cells.
Email: Marta.Kowalczyk@qc.cuny.edu
Ning Chen
Dr. Ning Chen obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Seogjoo Jang.
Education
Phd in Chemistry, Graduate Center, CUNY
BS in Environmental Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, China.
Research Interests
Dr Ning Chen is currently interested the florescence mechanism of conjugated oligomers by performing quantum chemistry calculations, and he is working on models to explain excitonic behavior in these molecules as seen in room temperature single molecule spectroscopy.
Email: nchen2@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Murali Devi
Dr Murali Devi was born in India. He received his BS degree majoring in Biology and Computer Science at Long island University, New York. He received an MS in Computer Science at the same college. After teaching Computer Science in the CS Department of LIU, he started getting interested in condensed matter Physics. He received his MPhil and PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York(CUNY).
Education
Phd in Physics, Graduate Center, CUNY
MPhil in Physics, Graduate Center, CUNY
Ms in Computer Science, Long Island University
BS in Biology and Computer Science, Long Island University
Research Interests
Dr Devi is interested in theoretical and computational modeling of conjugate polymers, room temperature single molececule spectroscopy, and the application of quantum master equations to quantum open systems.
Email: mdevi@qc.cuny.edu
Taner Mahmut Ture
Taner Mahmut Ture studied in Brooklyn College, where he received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry. He is currently working on his doctorate in Chemistry under Professor Seogjoo Jang in the Chemistry Phd Program at CUNY.
Education
B.S. in Chemistry, Brooklyn College
Research Interests
Taner Mahmut Ture is currently interested in studying quantum dynamics of proton-transfer and electron-transfer. He is interested in finding both numerical and analytical solutions of quantum master equations and using derivations from the path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics for semi-classical dynamics.
Email: Tture@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Ryan Lim Pangilinan
Ryan Pangilinan is currently a PhD student in Physics working under Dr Seogjoo Jang at CUNY. He recieved his BS in Chemistry from St. John’s University.
Education
BS in Chemistry, St. Johns University.
Email: @qc.cuny.edu
Former Group Members
Daniel Montemayor
Dr Montemayor has worked on modeling of exciton Hamiltonian for light harvesting complexes and quantum dynamics of delocalized excitons. He has also worked on application of Machine learning techniques to unerstand activation of olfactory receptors. He is currently working in the Department of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science center in San Antonia, Texas.
Dr Daniel Montemayor was born in San Antonio, Texas. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Boston University, Massachusetts, where he studied Quantum Liouville and Linearized Path Integral treatments of vibronic excitations in small molecules in the pure dephasing limit. He developed semiclassical density propagation schemes to treat electronic relaxations in the pre-dissociation process of I2. He employed Diatomics-in-Molecules method to model valance bond potential energy surfaces of dihalogen in rare gas environments. During his dissertation, he received the GRS Excellence in Teaching Award.
He then worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Atlantic Centre for Atomistic and Molecular Modeling, University of Dublin, where he studied excitonic energy transfer in biological systems using Linearized Path Integral Density matrix propagation schemes. During his stay there, he also developed the NonAdMD quantum-classical simulation software for study of non-adiabatic transfer processes in condensed phase systems. He also investigated coherent energy transfer processes subject to inhomogeneous dissipative system-bath interactions. He further applied inhomogeneous pigment-protein interaction methodology to model excitonic energy transfer processes in light harvesting complexes.
Dr Montemayor worked as a senior postdoctoral research associate at Queens College where he conducted simulations of exciton dynamics and spectroscopy of the photosynthetic light harvessting complexes of purple bacteria. He has palyed a major role in obtaining two grants to use the supercomputing facilities of the D. E. Shaw company’s specialized Anton computer, and the systems at the Center for Functional Nano-materials, Brookhaven National Laboratory. He has also worked on machine learning models for odor perception using deep belief networks. He has also been developing the Fortified software that uses machine learning and quantum mechanical toolset to study chemical systems.
Education
PhD in Chemistry, Boston University
Research Interests
Dr Montemayor is currently interested in using AI Machine learning techniques to further his research into mammalian olfaction and perception. He is also interested in coherent energy transfer processes of photosynthetic light harvesting complexes. He is actively continuing to developing the Fortified and NonAdMD software package.
Email: Daniel.Montemayor@qc.cuny.edu
Eva Rivera
Dr Rivera has worked on all atomistic simulation of large-scale biological systems such as photosynthetic light harvesting complexes and olfactory rceptors. She has also worked on force field development and parameterization employing classical and quantum calculation methods.
Dr Eva Rivera received her PhD in Chemistry from Boston University, Massachusetts where she examined the effects of environment and sequence in the aggregation of amyloidogenic hIAPP20-29 peptides. She studied computationally the crowding and confinement of these amyloidogenic peptides, and she developed a model for their aggregation propensity due to salt concentrations based on surface tension. She also computationally constructed and simulated revers AOT micelles to study effect of confinement on the amyloidogenic AB16-22 and Sup7-13 peptides.
After her dissertation under Prof John Straub, she took a post doctorial research fellowship at the Atlantic Center for Atomistic and Molecular Modeling in the Department of Physics an the University College Dublin. There she developed and simulated molecular dynamics models of the Fenno-Matthews-Olson(FMO) complex under various solvation conditions. She also explored the effects of secondary structure and protein mobility on chromophore energetics.
She continued her research as a Post Doctorial Research Fellow at the Department of Physics at the Uiversita di Roma `La Sapienza’. There, she worked on the molecular mechanics model for the reaction center of purple bacteria, and she explored the effects of secondary structure on the chromphores of FMO.
After returning back to the Atlantic Center for Atomistic and Molecular Modeling at the University College Dublin, she developed the site-dependent model for energy transfer in FMO, including contributions from site specific interactions. At the institution, she started to develop and simulate molecular mechanics model of Light Harvesting 2(LH2) complex from purple bacteria.
After joining the Jang Group at Queens College, she continued her work on the LH2 Complex where she explored the effects of symmetry on energy transfer. She looked into electronic structure calculations to quantify the hydrogen bonding in these complexes. Dr Rivera also started work in simulating the olfactory receptor OR7D4 and its mutations. She has contributed to the two grants to use the supercomputing facilities of the D.E. Shaw company’s specialized Anton computer, and the systems at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Center for Functional Nano-materials.
Education
B.A. in Chemistry, University of Florida
PhD in Chemistry, Boston University
Research Interests
Dr Rivera is interested in simulation of large-scale biological systems using classical molecular dynamics. She would like to understand the contribution of protein environments on the energy transfer in photosynthetic complexes, and specific environmental interactions on excitation energies of pigment molecules. She is interested in simulation techniques for determining the free-energy profile of biological processes such protein folding, behavior, and efficiency. Her research interests have now extended to the simulations of olfactory receptors and behavior-modifying mutations.
Email: Eva.Rivera@qc.cuny.edu
Hiroko Ajiki
Dr Ajiki has worked on electronic sturcture calculation of various organic conjugated molecules such as oligophenylene-vinylene and PCBM-oliogofluorene dyads. She is currently working in Japan.
Andres Castillo
Dr Castillo was a Master’s student in the group. He completed his PhD with Prof. David Reichman at Columbia University, and is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher for Prof. Thomas Markland at Stanford University.
Lei Yang
Dr Yang worked on theoretical modeling of exciton transfer processes in organic conjuagted molecules and also developed theories of coherent resonance energy transfer reaction. He is currently an assistant professor in China.
Praveen Kumar
Dr Kumar worked on theoretical modeling of emission linehsapes of photosynthetic light harvesting complexes and also development of polaron transformed lineshape theories. He is currently a research assistant professor at Texas Tech University.
Xun Huang
Xun Huang received a Master’s degree and worked on the modeling of lineshapes of electronic excited states.