Education
Ph.D., Physics, University of Illinois, 1994; BA, Columbia University

Appointments
8/03-present: Assistant Professor, Ball State University
9/01-8/03: Visiting Assistant Professor, Hanover College
1/98-8/01: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Georgia Tech
10/94-12/97: Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of California, Davis

Teaching Interests
Summer workshop on Computational Physics for High School Physics Teachers
Conceptual Physics (PHYCS 100)
Upper level course including Electrodynamics (PHYCS 676), Electricity and Magnetism (PHYCS 450/550 and 452/552), and Thermodynamics
Co-teacher of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (APHYS 310/510) Spring 2005

Personal Interests (When time permits!!!)
Hiking, cycling, choral singing, losing to my students in soccer, drawing, and photography

Research Description
The main theme of my research is the use of quantum Monte Carlo methods to measure and understand the correlations of electrons in materials. Understanding in detail the interactions between electrons and how these affect material structures like chemical bonds is particularly important for developing and improving practical computational methods for determining the electronic structure of materials and nanostructures. A main feature for study is the exchange-correlation hole, which measures the change in density in a material if an electron is fixed at a particular position in it.

I have just been awarded a grant from the NSF (under the division of Material Research, Condensed Matter and Materials Theory branch). The project title is "RUI: Empirical Density Functional Theory Using the Laplacian of the Density." The total amount awarded is $150,000, including funding for a graduate student and undergraduate assistant for fiscal years 2009 through 2011. The focus of the project is implementing and testing new density functional models based on the Laplacian of density and derived upon recent Monte Carlo calculations of the exchange-correlation hole in silicon at Georgia Tech. Density functional theory is a particularly efficient way to obtain ground state properties of a material, and is also a starting point for electron transport calculations such as those being done by Ron Cosby and students.   The Laplacian of the density highlights "hilltop" and "valley" features in this function and can be used to distinguish, e.g., between covalent and ionic bonds

Other research interests include the electronic and optical properties of semiconductors and particularly of carbon nanostructures, in which area I am currently collaborating with several other members of the CCN—Drs. Khatun, Cosby and Jin.