Please note that we will not be accepting any new graduate students or postdocs at USC. Any interested researchers should keep an eye out for our new group page at Binghamton University. 

General Philosophy

We are broadly interested in understanding the interplay between spin, charge, and lattice degrees of freedom in the solid state and developing ways to design new and improve existing functional materials. We place a strong emphasis on preparing high purity materials using high-temperature ceramic and hydrothermal methods. We place an equal emphasis on the complete physical characterization, which includes accurately determining the underlying crystal structure, magnetism, electrical transport, dielectric properties, and electrochemical performance. We also frequently use density functional theory (DFT) calculations to bridge our understanding of the nature of chemical bonding to the functional properties of materials.