Matt receives ACS-Moore Postdoctoral Bridge Award in Quantum Materials

I’ve been selected for the inaugural cohort of the ACS-Moore Postdoctoral Bridge Award in Quantum Materials. The program is run by the American Chemical Society and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through its Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) initiative. Following nomination by UC Santa Barbara, I’m one of two UCSB postdoctoral researchers in this first cohort.

The award provides $100,000 over one year, beginning in November 2026. It covers salary support and professional development, including travel to scientific meetings. It also includes a webinar series, an in-person summit at ACS headquarters in Washington, DC, in June 2027, and the chance to connect with other postdocs working on quantum materials.

The research

Most of my work so far has been on battery materials: making new electrode compounds and working out how their structures change as ions move in and out. The same chemistry turns out to be a useful handle on quantum materials. Inserting or removing ions changes how many electrons a material has, and in correlated materials that can switch on new electronic and magnetic states. Ram Seshadri and I set out this idea in a recent perspective in Physical Review Materials, “Linking Battery Electrode Science with Correlated and Quantum Materials”.

Over the next year, I’ll use electrochemistry as a synthetic tool to tune electron count in correlated oxides. I’ll pair it with X-ray and neutron scattering and magnetic measurements to follow how structure and electronic behavior change along the way. Our work on layered Na₁₋ₓRhO₂, currently under review, is an early example of this approach.

Thanks

Thank you to Ram and the Seshadri group, the UCSB Materials Research Laboratory and Materials Department, my collaborators, and everyone who supported the nomination. Thanks also to the American Chemical Society and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for backing postdocs in quantum materials.

This work is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF14251 to the American Chemical Society for the ACS-Moore Postdoctoral Bridge Award in Quantum Materials.