Eberly faculty member receives DOE Early Career Research Award ...

Eberly College of Science

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Lukas Muechler, an assistant professor of chemistry and of physics in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State, has received the 2024 Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Award for his project titled “Leveraging Breakthroughs in Topological Physics to Design Better Photoswitches.” Muechler is among 91 researchers chosen for this prestigious award, which provides five years of continuous funding to scientists from various disciplines within the DOE Office of Science research programs. Collectively, these recipients will share $138 million in funding for research spanning a broad range of topics, with Muechler’s project specifically funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences.  

“This award is extremely important for a young group like ours,” Muechler said. “It will allow us to pursue our goal to develop new theoretical methods to predict and control the outcome of chemical reactions. Our approach is highly interdisciplinary and combines ideas from theoretical chemistry with recently discovered concepts from physics, and as such is highly explorative. Securing funding for this project enables us to concentrate entirely on the science for the next five years." 

In the newly funded project, the Muechler group will apply recent theoretical advancements in the field of topological condensed matter physics to understand the structure of the molecular potential energy surface (PES) of molecules. The PES describes the energy landscape of a system, like a collection of atoms, and is crucial to understanding the outcome of chemical reactions. Currently, the use of modern topological methods is still in its early stages and encounters both conceptual and technical obstacles. Nevertheless, if the Muechler group’s hypothesis holds true, their approach could lead to new systematic and automated methods for predicting chemical reactivity.  

Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State in 2021, Muechler held a postdoctoral position as a Flatiron Research Fellow with the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Simons Foundation in New York City. He earned a doctoral degree at Princeton University in 2018 and completed undergraduate work at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz, Germany in 2013.

About DOE and the Early Career Research Program (ECRP)  

The Department of Energy (DOE) is a U.S. federal agency that develops and implements national energy policies. It handles energy production, nuclear power research and development, oversees the nuclear weapons program, and promotes energy conservation. Additionally, the DOE conducts research on a range of energy technologies and advocates for sustainable energy practices. To uphold the mission of the DOE, the Early Career Research Program (ECRP) enhances the nation's scientific community by supporting exceptional researchers at the start of their careers, when many make their most impactful contributions. Since its establishment in 2010, the program has granted 961 awards, including 631 to university researchers and 330 to those at national laboratories.