VU-ORNL Collaborative Workshops

We started the VU-ORNL Workshop in 2022.

VU organizers


     De-en Jiang

     Jason Valentine

     Sharon Weiss

     Sok Pantelides



2022 Workshop

2023 Workshop at ORNL: 09/18/2023 - 09/19/2023. (webpage)



Inaugural VU-ORNL Collaborative Workshop on Nanoscience

21 November 2022, Monday

Engineering and Science Building 044, Vanderbilt University

2414 Highland Ave, Nashville, TN 37212


VU organizers: De-en Jiang, Jason Valentine, Sharon Weiss, Sok Pantelides

ORNL organizers: Valentino Cooper, Santa Jasone-Popova, Naresh Osti


7:30-8:30am Breakfast; meet and greet


Introduction and Overview; Chair: De-en Jiang

8:30-8:40am Philippe Fauchet: Opening remarks

8:40-8:50am Sharon Weiss: Overview of the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (VINSE)

8:50-9:00am John McLean: Overview of the Department of Chemistry at Vanderbilt


Session I: Materials Computation and Discovery; Chair: Jason Valentine

9:00-9:20am Valentino Cooper: From oxides to polymers: First principles materials design and discovery

9:20-9:40am Sok Pantelides: Chasing energy materials at the level of electrons and atoms

9:40-10:00am P. Ganesh: Harnessing anharmonicity and electron correlations for energy efficient computing


Coffee break: 10:00 – 10:30am


Session II: Batteries, Photonics, and Phonons; Chairs: Valentino Cooper; Sharon Weiss

10:30-10:50am Jason Valentine:  Batteries meet metasurfaces: energy efficient reconfigurable optics

10:50-11:10am Chelsea Chen:  Polymer-ceramic composite electrolyte for high energy lithium batteries

11:10-11:30am Josh Cadwell: Exploring the role of anisotropy and strong coupling in driving infrared nanophotonics

11:30-11:50am Gabe Veith:  What is the aprotic electrochemical double layer?

11:50-12:10pm Deyu Li: Energy transport through low dimensional and polar nanowires


Lunch break: 12:10 – 1:20pm


Session III: Advanced Techniques; Chairs: Sok Pantelides; Piran Kidami

1:20-1:40pm Ray Unocic: Advancing in situ/operando S/TEM for elucidating nanoscale transformation mechanisms and kinetics

1:40-2:00pm Petro Maksymovych: Phase transitions through the looking glass: Direct nanoscale probes of superconductivity and ferroelectricity

2:00-2:20pm Naresh Osti: Neutron study of microscopic dynamics of confined fluids of energy applications

2:20-2:40pm An-Ping Li: Quest for structure-property relationships down to the atomic scale via scanning tunneling microscopy


Session IV: Chemical Transformations and Interfaces; Chair: Santa Jasone-Popova

2:40-3:00pm Tomonori Saito: Closed-loop circularity of plastics by chemical upcycling

3:00-3:20pm Kane Jennings: Interfacing photosynthetic proteins with conducting polymers for biohybrid solar energy conversion

3:20-3:40pm Zili Wu: Catalytic insights into hydrogen production and utilization through new materials and tools


Coffee break: 3:40 – 4:10pm


Session V: Chemical Separations and Membranes; Chairs: Naresh Osti; De-en Jiang

4:10-4:30pm Santa Jasone-Popova: Searching for perfect match: harnessing weak interactions and size complementarity in ion separation

4:30-4:50pm Shihong Lin: Li+/Mg2+ separation using nanofiltration

4:50-5:10pm Zhenzhen Yang: CO2 capture and conversion: Ionic liquids, porous liquids, and two-dimensional nanomaterials

5:10-5:30pm Piran Kidami: Atomically thin membranes: Fundamentals at the extremes of lengths scales for disruptive innovation



5:30pm Concluding remarks and adjourn


ORNL organizers

     Valentino Cooper

     Santa Jasone-Popova

     Naresh Osti