Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Organic/Inorganic/Materials Seminar Series

Professor Matthias Wuttig, RWTH Aachen University of Technology

Hosted by Matthias Agne and David Johnson

Chalcogenides by Design: Developing Treasure Maps with Quantum Chemistry

Scientists and practitioners have long dreamt of designing materials with novel properties. Yet, a hundred years after quantum mechanics lay the foundations for a systematic description of the properties of solids, it is still not possible to predict the best material in applications such as photovoltaics, superconductivity or thermoelectric energy conversion. This is a sign of the complexity of the problem, which is often exacerbated by the need to optimize conflicting material properties. Hence, one can ponder if design routes for materials can be devised. In recent years, the focus of our work has been on designing advanced functional materials based on semiconducting chalcogenides with attractive opto-electronic properties, including phase change materials, thermoelectrics, photonic switches and materials for photovoltaics. To reach this goal, one can try to establish close links between material properties and chemical bonding. However, until recently it was quite difficult to adequately quantify chemical bonds. Some developments in the last decades, such as the quantum theory of atoms in molecules have provided the necessary tools to describe bonds in solids quantitatively. Using these tools, it has been possible to devise a map which separates different bonding mechanisms [1]. This map can now be employed to correlate chemical bonding with material properties. Machine learning and property classification demonstrate the potential of this approach. These insights are subsequently employed to design phase change as well as thermoelectric materials. Yet, the discoveries presented here also force us to revisit the concept of chemical bonds and bring back a history of vivid scientific disputes about ‘the nature of the chemical bond’.

[1] M. Wuttig, C.-F. Schön, J. Lötfering, P. Golub, C. Gatti, J.-Y. Raty, Revisiting the nature of chemical bonding in solids to design chalcogenides, Advanced Materials 2208485 (2023)

Join the Department of History and April Haynes, University of Wisconsin - Madison, for a talk on "They Know their Value and Take Advantage of It: Household Workers' Organizing at the Dawn of an American Service Economy."

In this talk, Haynes traces the simultaneous emergence of a waged service sector and the first stirrings of today's domestic workers' movement in the early US republic. Both trends are documented through the rise and fall of female intelligence offices, employment agencies which placed wage workers in employers' households across the North and West. The number of these offices exploded as demand for paid service rose in the era of northern abolition and the "pastoralization" of married women's housework. Drawing on data on 700 intelligence offices that operated between 1750 and 1850, Haynes finds that Black and female "intelligencers" kept a significant proportion of all offices beginning in the 1810s and that service workers increasingly used these spaces for mutual aid and proto-unionization. By midcentury, employer-class women regained the upper hand in domestic labor negotiations by launching a reform crusade that represented working-class female intelligence offices as sites of sex trafficking, demanding license laws, and organizing employer-run labor brokerages. Their actions both contributed to and obscured the racialization of domestic service, ultimately giving rise to the late nineteenth-century panic over "white slavery." Haynes argues that the class conflict over who could sell domestic labor power reveals its value within the development of American capitalism.

Haynes is professor and director of diversity, equity and inclusion in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research priorities include racialized gender, intimate labor, and women in social movements. Her first book, Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice in Nineteenth-century America, unearths the surprising origins of a sex panic that prepared many Americans to accept heteronormativity. Her most recent article recovers the earliest known movement for sex workers' rights in US history and was published by Gender & History this fall. Her work has been recognized with awards from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. 

The Department of History Seminar Series runs throughout the academic year and features guest speakers from the top universities who share their perspectives on history. Visit history.uoregon.edu for more information about the seminar series. 

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Physical Chemistry Seminar Series

Physical Chemistry Rotation Talk Hosted by Julia Widom

Evan Wylie A General Single-Molecule Optical Approach to Study Local DNA “Breathing” At and Near SS-DSDNA Junctions

So you’ve spent years mastering your research, diving deep into your field, and pushing the boundaries of knowledge. But when it comes to exploring careers, where do you even start?  The good news? You don’t have to figure it out alone. AI + LinkedIn are game-changers for PhD students looking to:

- Discover career paths that fit your skills

- Build a compelling LinkedIn profile that doesn't feel like bragging

- Expand your network—without awkward cold emails or forced small talk

In this interactive, hands-on workshop, Jeremy Schifeling, former leader of LinkedIn's Education Team, will show you how to:

Register at https://gradfutures.princeton.edu/events/2025/dissertation-dream-job-leveraging-ai-linkedin-career-clarity