3:00 p.m.
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)
3:30–5:00 p.m.
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.
2:00 p.m.
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
7:30–11:30 a.m.
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:
Use AI-powered tools to map out career options in industry, academia, and beyond Optimize your LinkedIn profile so recruiters actually notice you Leverage hidden networking strategies to connect with people who can open doors
Register at https://gradfutures.princeton.edu/events/2025/dissertation-dream-job-leveraging-ai-linkedin-career-clarity
10:00–11:00 a.m.
Most professional development programs encourage exploration of your interests and career options. But career and life decisions are inextricably connected. In this workshop, Laura Murray, PhD, and Kate Thorpe, PhD, adapt the strategies in the best-selling book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans to your experience as a PhD student, whatever your stage or discipline, to help you begin the process of designing a satisfying, integrated, coherent life both during and after graduate school.
We’ll invite you to reflect on what you’ve learned about yourself through academic, personal, and professional experiences and to consider your goals and values as well as key questions regarding future possibilities to begin paving a path to a joyful, well-designed future. Register at https://gradfutures.princeton.edu/events/2025/designing-your-future-phds-primer
5:00 p.m.
What is Research? (2025) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.
What is Research? (2025) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.
What is Research? (2025) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.
3:00–4:00 p.m.
Graduate students! Perfect your skills in creating captivating and concise posters tailored for the Graduate Research Forum and any upcoming conference. This webinar will equip you with the essential principles of modern poster design, enabling you to simplify complex ideas, integrate visuals effectively, and deliver your message within the strict space confines of a poster. Whether you're a novice or an experienced presenter, don't miss this opportunity to learn the art of creating impactful poster that reinforce your research narrative and engage your audience. Register at https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/b75dada44ac6432e9100b9271193c184
3:30–5:00 p.m.
The Department of History is pleased to welcome Professor Laurie Marhoefer (University of Washington) for the 2025 Pierson Lecture: "Trans Berlin: The World's First Trans Politics, Berlin's Queer Golden Age, and the Rise of Fascism, 1918 – 1933."
In 1918, Germany had a democratic revolution. In the fourteen years that followed, Berlin became the most open city in the world for transgender men and women. They organized the world's first trans political groups. They ran magazines for and by trans people. They helped to establish the beginnings of legal and medical transition, working with city police and with Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science. Then, the Nazis came to power and destroyed trans Berlin. Yet, much of what trans people fought for in the 1920s has become a reality today. This talk explores the fascinating lives of transgender women and men in the 1920s and the world they created.
The Annual Pierson Lecture is a Department of History tradition that spans back to 1993, when it was founded to honor Stan and Joan Pierson. The Piersons were both exemplary citizens of the community, dedicated to history and education as proven by their distinguished records of intellectual accomplishment and community involvement. This lecture series brings distinguished scholars to the University of Oregon, so that they may share their work in alignment with the Piersons’ interests in cultural, intellectual, and political life.