People

Barry Thompson was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1977 and moved to Gallipolis, Ohio at a young age, where he attended elementary and high school. Barry then attended the University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande, Ohio, where he majored in Chemistry and Physics and minored in Mathematics. After completing his undergraduate studies at Rio Grande, Barry moved to the University of Florida to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry with Prof. John R. Reynolds as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. During his Ph.D. studies, Barry focused on the design and synthesis of electroactive conjugated polymers for electrochromic and photovoltaic applications. Upon completion of his Ph.D. in 2005, Barry moved to Prof. Jean Fréchet’s lab at UC Berkeley to further pursue his interests in polymer-based photovoltaics as an ACS-PRF Postdoctoral Fellow. After a three-year stay at Berkeley, Barry moved to the University of Southern California, Department of Chemistry and Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Barry was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 2015 and Full Professor in 2019.

Tanin was born and raised in Shiraz, Iran in 1995. In 2015 she attended Los Angeles Pierce College and then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles in 2018 majoring in Chemistry. At UCLA, Tanin worked in the lab of Prof. Hosea Nelson on polycyclization of terpene natural products. After graduating with a BS in Chemistry in 2020, she began her Ph.D. studies at USC and joined Prof. Barry Thompson’s group.

Grace was born in Cranston, Rhode Island in 2000 and raised in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. After graduating high school in 2017, she studied chemistry at the University of Rhode Island. At the University of Rhode Island she worked in the lab of Prof. Jimmie Oxley on synthesizing and analyzing highly energetic materials, and received her BS in Chemistry in 2021. During this time she also interned in the analytical lab of Teknor Apex working on phthalate detection in plastics. She began her Ph.D. studies at USC in the fall of 2021 and joined Prof. Barry Thompson’s group.

Tim is a Los Angeles native, born in 1988. As an undergraduate, he majored in biochemistry and performed research in Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) under Prof. Yangyang Liu. Upon graduating, he was awarded a fellowship with Partnership for Research in Engineering and Materials Science (PREM). Continuing his education into his masters, he further studied MOF materials and their applications in the field of catalysis for sulfur mustard compounds and singlet oxygen quantum yields. After taking a year to work in an industry position in pharmaceuticals, he decided to pursue a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry by joining the lab of Prof. Barry Thompson in the fall of 2021.

Steve was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1999 and was raised in Boca Raton, Florida for most of his youth. He received his B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Florida in the Spring of 2021. There, he studied under the supervision of Dr. Brent Sumerlin at the George and Josephine Butler Polymer Research Laboratory. He focused on designing new polymer systems that could be reprocessed like thermoplastics, while also retaining all the beneficial properties of crosslinked thermosets. In doing so, he has helped to expand the view of Polymer Science beyond this binary, offering insight into a new class of materials known as “Vitrimers.” He began his Ph.D. studies at the University of Southern California in the Fall of 2022 and joined Prof. Barry C. Thompson’s Group.

Dhairya was born in Ahmedabad, India, and spent his childhood in Bokaro, India, where he attended elementary and high school. In 2017, he attended the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar for an Integrated Master’s degree in Science. There, he majored in Chemistry and took minor courses in Biology and Computer Science. Over the course of his program, he undertook summer projects on ferroelectric device fabrication and protein modeling. In his fourth year, he joined Prof. V. Krishnan’s Lab, where he worked on the synthesis of Extended Conjugated Organoboron Dimers for OLED applications as a part of his Master’s Thesis. In Fall 2022, Dhairya began his Ph.D. studies at the University of Southern California and joined Prof. Barry Thompson’s group.

Sarah was born and raised in Burbank, California in 1998. In 2016, she attended Los Angeles Pierce College and Los Angeles Valley College majoring in chemistry. She then transferred to the University of Southern California in 2021. At USC, Sarah did undergraduate research in Brent Melot’s lab synthesizing and characterizing hybrid lead halide materials to better understand structure property relationships and find ways to tune the optical properties using organic components. After graduating with a B.S in Chemistry in 2023, she began her Ph.D studies at USC and joined Professor Barry Thompson’s group.

Jinan was born and raised in Kerala, India. After completing his higher secondary education in 2019, he joined the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) in Bhubaneswar for an integrated master’s program. During his studies, he majored in Chemistry and worked on his master’s thesis under Dr. S. Peruncheralathan, focusing on the heterocyclization of 5-amino pyrazoles. In Fall 2024, Jinan began his PhD studies at the University of Southern California (USC) and joined Prof. Barry C. Thompson’s research group.

Aditya was born and raised in Mumbai, India. He completed the International Baccalaureate program at Hill Spring International School in Summer 2022. He is now an undergraduate at USC, studying chemistry. 

Tianhua was born and raised in Shanghai, China. He graduated from YK Pao School’s IBDP international program in the Spring of 2022 and began his undergraduate studies at Wake Forest University in Fall of 2022, majoring in Chemistry with a concentration in Materials Chemistry (B.S.), where he participated in Dr. Schaack’s research group. In Fall 2024, Tianhua transferred to the University of Southern California to continue his chemistry studies and joined Dr. Thompson’s group as an undergraduate student.