Highlighting her recent work with the MRSEC Interdisciplinary Research Group on Complex Metal Oxides, graduate student, Tesia Janicki, brought home an award for best poster from the 51st Midwest Theoretical Chemistry Conference (MWTCC) in June.
Janicki’s poster, titled “Modeling crystallization pathways of polymorphic materials: enhanced sampling techniques and method development,” summarized her work developing methods to model polymorphic materials. Out of 50 total posters presented, Janicki’s was awarded one of five prizes for best poster, supported by the Journal of Physical Chemistry.
“As a theoretical chemist, I’m fascinated by developing physically-motivated models to offer an interpretation of experimental observations at the atomic scale. The challenge comes in the simulation timescales that computers are able to access. Computers take microseconds while real-world phenomena can require hours or days. My work attempts to bridge these timescale differences by applying enhanced sampling techniques. In the same way that a bridge shortens the journey across a valley, these methods reduce the time required to obtain a picture of the atomic-scale mechanism,” said Janicki.
The MWTCC is a meeting where students, faculty, and scientists come together to share their latest results in theoretical and computational chemistry. The meeting was hosted in 2019 by the University of Notre Dame, June 6–8.
“I am grateful for the support of collaborators in the MRSEC research group who have provided essential insight and helped cultivate my communication skills,” said Janicki.