2024
Aran Barton
- Mentors: Dr. Maria Tamargo & Dr. Igor Kuskovsky (Subproject 3)
Jonathan Victoria Camacho
- Mentor: Dr. Ubaldo Cordova & Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 2)
Daria Kafeeva
- Mentors: Dr. Alexander Khanikaev & Dr. Maria Tamargo (Subproject 3)
Bibi Khan
- Mentors: Dr. Nicolas Giovambattista & Dr. Gustavo Lopez (Subproject 2)
Britney Singh
- Mentors: Dr. Donna McGregor & Dr. Rein Ulijn (Subproject 2)
Karamoko Soumahoro
- Mentor: Dr. Matthew Sfeir & Dr. Swapan Gayen (Subproject 3)
Afrin Tamanna
- Mentor: Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum (Subproject 1)
Wilmer Martinez Valle
- Mentor: Dr. Ubaldo Cordova & Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 2)
2023
Emily Charleson
- Mentors: Dr. Raymond Tu & Dr. Elizabeth Biddinger (Subproject 2)
Siedah Hall
- Mentor: Dr. Matthew Sfeir & Dr. Gabrielle Grosso (Subproject 3)
Rohma Khan
- Mentors: Dr. Carlos Meriles & Dr. Johannes Flick (Subproject 3)
Sina Mohammadi
- Mentors: Dr. Maria Tamargo & Dr. Mohammed-Ali Miri (Subproject 3)
Justin Pinca
- Mentors: Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar & Dr. Gustavo Lopez & Dr. Nicolas Giovambattista (Subproject 2)
Abdou Niang
- Mentors: Dr. Roger Dorsinville & Dr. Swapan Gayen (Subproject 3)
Patrick Yang
- Mentor: Dr. Stephen O’Brien & Dr. Sanjoy Banerjee (Subproject 2)
2022
Natalie Boykoff
- Mentors: Dr. Stephen O’Brien & Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 2)
Daniel Carter
- Mentors: Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar & Dr. Alexander Couzis (Subproject 2)
Paola Colon de Leon
- Mentors: Dr. Rein Ulijn & Dr. Raymond Tu (Subproject 2)
Mohammad Hassan
- Mentors: Dr. Johannes Flick & Dr. Carlos Meriles (Subproject 1)
Keidy Matos
- Mentors: Dr. Adam Braunschweig (Subproject 2)
Eric McPherson
- Mentors: Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 2)
2021
Serah Essang
- Mentors: Dr. Adam Braunschweig & Dr. Vinod Menon (Subproject 2)
- Withdrew from IDEALS Program and selected a new mentor within the CUNY Doctoral Program
Samhita Kattekola
- Mentors: Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar & Dr. Alex Couzis (Subproject 2)
Janel Rivera-Cancel
- Mentors: Dr. Gustavo Lopez & Dr. Nicolas Giovambattista (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in August 2025
- Thesis “The role of water in peptide behavior and peptide-based water-responsive crystals”
Gershon Starr
- Mentors: Dr. Ray Tu & Dr. Xi Chen (Subproject 2)
September 1, 2021: IDEALS II BEGINS
2020
Ali Eltareb
- Mentors: Dr. Nicolas Giovambattista & Dr. Gustavo Lopez (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in August 2023
- Thesis: “The Role of Nuclear Quantum Effects in Supercooled Water and Amorphous Ice”
Nasim Farahmand
- Mentors: Dr. Stephen O’Brien & Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in September 2021
- Thesis: “Characterization and Applications of Europium Based Perovskite Oxide Nanoparticles”
Didier Ndengeyintwali
- Mentors: Dr. Pouyan Ghaemi & Dr. Vinod Menon (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in August 2024
- Thesis: “Interplay of magnetic impurities and superconductivity in topological materials”
Baseemah Rucker
- Mentors: Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar & Dr. Alexander Couzis (Subproject 2)
2019
Candice Forrester
- Mentors: Dr. Gustavo Lopez & Dr. Maria Tamargo (Subproject 1)
Ahamed Jubair
- Mentors: Dr. Swapan Gayen & Dr. Maria Tamargo (Subproject 3)
Andrew Levine
- Mentors: Dr. Adam Braunschweig & Dr. Rein Ulijn (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in April 2021
- Thesis: “Emergent Photophysics in Diketopyrrolopyrrole Superstructures”
Doug MacPherson
- Mentors: Dr. Rein Ulijn & Dr. Raymond Tu (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in December 2022
- Thesis: “Leveraging Bio-Inspired Molecules for Cancer Theranostics”
Richard Monge
- Mentors: Dr. Carlos Meriles & Dr. Vinod Menon (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in August 2023
- Thesis: “Dynamics of Spin and Charge of Color Centers in Diamond Under Cryogenic Conditions”
Shejla Pollozi
- Mentors: Dr. Donna McGregor & Dr. Gustavo Lopez (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in October 2022
- Thesis “Design and applications of fmoc-histidine and aspartic acid tripeptides as proton conductive materials”
2018
Vasilios Deligiannakis
- Mentors: Dr. Maria Tamargo & Dr. Carlos Meriles (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD in January 2020
- Thesis: “II-VI Type-II Quantum Dot Superlattices for Novel Applications”
Omari Kirkland
- Mentors: Dr. John Lombardi & Dr. Vinod Menon (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in June 2023
- Thesis: “SERS for the Detection of Trace Materials”
Gabriel Lopez-Morales
- Mentors: Dr. Gustavo Lopez & Dr. Vinod Menon (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in October 2022
- Thesis “Engineering rare-earth based color centers in wide bandgap semiconductors for quantum and nanoscale applications”
Samsondeen Raheem
- Mentors: Dr. Rein Uljin & Dr. Raymond Tu (Subproject 2)
- Withdrew from Chemistry Doctoral Program to join Pharmacy Doctoral Program
Kara Ng
- Mentors: Dr. Dorthe Eisele & Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in July 2020
- Thesis: “Excitons in Self-Assembled Hybrid Systems of Molecular Aggregate Light-Harvesting Nanotubes: Charge-Transfer Substrates and Solution-Stabilized Nanocomposites”
Sean O’Neil
- Mentors: Dr. Raymond Tu (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in June 2018
- Thesis: “Evolution of mechanical properties for stimuli-responsive peptide-PEG bioconjugates.”
- Former Post-Doc at City College of New York
2017
Jacob Henshaw
- Mentors: Dr. Carlos Meriles & Dr. Vinod Menon (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in August 2018
- Thesis: “Charge State Dynamics and Quantum Sensing with Defects in Diamond.”
Fred Pearsall
- Mentors: Dr. Stephen O’Brien & Dr. Jackie Li (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in April 2019
- Thesis: “Synthesis and Characterization of Dielectric and Multiferrioc Nanocrystalline Transition Metal Oxide Materials and Nanocomposites.”
Nick Proscia
- Mentors: Dr. Vinod Menon & Dr. Carlos Meriles (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD in February 2019
- Thesis: “Control of light-matter interactions via nanostructured photonic materials.”
Cody Youmans
- Mentors: Dr. Pouyan Ghaemi & Dr. Kyungwha Park (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in September 2019
- Thesis: “Interplay of Magnetism, Superconductivity, and Topological Phases of Matter.”
2016
Robert Collison
- Mentors: Dr. Jacob Trevino & Dr. Stephen O’Brien (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in October 2020
- Thesis: “Interactions of Organic Fluorophores with Plasmonic Surface Lattice Resonances”
Anthony Cruz-Balberdy
- Mentors: Dr. Gustavo Lopez & Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in April 2021
- Thesis: “Computational Modeling of Water and Proteins in Drug Discovery”
John Villanova
- Mentors: Dr. Kyungwha Park & Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD in May 2018
- Thesis: “Examining Topological Insulators and Topological Semimetals Using First Principles Calculations.”
Megan Webster
- Mentors: Dr. Ilona Kretzschmar & Dr. Marco Castaldi (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in September 2019
- Thesis: “Investigation of the Synthesis and Optoelectronic Properties of Ultrasmall CdSe Quantum Dots”
Associated Doctoral Students
Entela Buzi
- Mentor: Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum (Subproject 1)
Ayesha Lakra
- Mentor: Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum (Subproject 1)
Yamuna Paudel
- Mentor: Dr. Matthew Sfeir (Subproject 3)
- Received PhD in September 2024
- Thesis: “Design, Fabrication, and Spectroscopy of Photocatalytic Materials in Visible Spectrum”
Fariha Tasnim
- Mentor: Dr. Stephen O’Brien (Subproject 2)
September 1, 2021: IDEALS II BEGINS!
Haiming Deng
- Mentors: Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum & Dr. Kyunghwa Park (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD June 2021
- Thesis: “Quantum Transport in Topological Magnets”
Thor Axtmann Garcia
- Mentors: Dr. Maria Tamargo & Dr. Aidong Shen (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD September 2017
- Thesis: “Heterjunction Engineering for Next Generation Hybrid II-VI Materials”
Hailin Richard Huang
- Mentors: Dr. Rein Ulijn & Dr. Stephen O’Brien (Subproject 2)
- Received PhD in June 2023
- Thesis: “Design and Synthesis of Surface-Functionalized Nanomaterials for Cancer Theranostics”
Ido Levy
- Mentors: Dr. Maria Tamargo & Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD in October 2022
- Thesis: “Growth, Optimization, and Characterization of Topological Insulator Nanostructures by Molecular Beam Epitaxy”
Shihua Zhao
- Mentor: Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum (Subproject 1)
- Received PhD in January 2023
- Thesis: “Revealing Three-Dimensional Magnetic Texture with Machine Learning Models”