Materials Faculty

Chris Ackerson / Professor
Phone: (970) 491-0521

Nanoparticle structure, nanoparticle chemistry, novel nanoparticle synthesis strategies, applications of nanoparticles to biological imaging.

Eugene Chen / University Distinguished Professor, John K. Stille Endowed Chair in Chemistry
Phone: (970) 491-5609

Polymer Science, Sustainable Chemistry, and Homogeneous Catalysis: Intrinsically recyclable & bio-derived sustainable polymers; chemical synthesis of biodegradable microbial plastics; precision (living and stereoselective & chemoselective) polymer synthesis; Lewis pair polymerization methodology for compounded sequence control; metal-catalyzed coordination polymerization for chiral polymers; organocatalysis for biomass conversion to fuels, chemicals & materials.

Richard Finke / Professor
Phone: (970) 491-2541

Chemical catalysis, nanoparticle research, energy research and kinetics and mechanism

Megan Hill / Assistant Professor

Seonah Kim / Associate Professor

Develop computational catalyst design and apply computational tools to both enzymatic and catalytic conversion processes of sustainable chemicals and polymers from plants (biomass) for a new bio-energy infrastructure. Mechanism-driven discovery of biopolymer upgrading and material design via molecular and quantum mechanics. Machine learning approach in catalyst design, and (bio)fuel and chemical property prediction tool kit development.

Jamie Neilson / Associate Professor
Phone: (970) 491-2958

New materials and methodologies involving solid-state and solution-phase reactions, particularly those involving kinetic control. We study structure/property relationships of materials (e.g., magnetism, electrical transport) using advanced synchrotron X-ray and time-of-flight neutron scattering and spectroscopic methods.

Amy Prieto / Professor
Phone: (970) 491-1592

Electrochemical synthesis of inorganic bulk and nanoscale materials, low-temperature solid-state chemistry, nanomaterials.

Melissa Reynolds / Professor, Research Associate Dean
Phone: (970) 491-3775

Multidisciplinary chemical design and fabrication of biomimetic materials for use in medical device applications. Research work includes: synthesis of organic and inorganic compounds including small-molecule therapeutics, polymers, and extended frameworks; analytical studies utilizing fluorescence, chemiluminesence, zeta potential, and LC/MS-TOF; fabrication and engineering of materials; biomedical efficacy and toxicity studies.

Justin Sambur / Associate Professor
Phone: (970) 491-3096

The Sambur group synthesizes nanomaterials and develops imaging techniques to correlate chemical and structural properties with function/performance.

Joe Zadrozny / Assistant Professor
Phone: (970) 495-4168

My research interests are primarily in physical inorganic chemistry, harnessing synthetic inorganic/coordination chemistries and advanced magnetic resonance spectroscopies to enable the next generation of bioimaging, quantum information science, and reactivity applications.