William Kopcha

Postdoc, Chemistry and Nanoscience Center, Spectroscopy and Photoscience Group, NREL

Office of Basic Energy Sciences Early Career Network Representative

Will is a postdoctoral researcher at NREL and the SPECS representative to the BES ECN. He received both a BS and an MS from the University of Connecticut, where he conducted research in the synthesis of self-assembling surfactants and their supramolecular interactions with carbon nanotubes. Following a brief foray into teaching and a stint in the food and beverage industry, where he evaluated wastewater purification and beverage treatment technologies for addressing business needs, he decided to return to fundamental scientific research by entering a PhD program at Rutgers. There, he explored a variety of synthetic and analytical projects related to both metal-containing and empty fullerenes, though the bulk of his dissertation work revolved around the relationships between molecular structure and charge-transfer dynamics studied by transient absorption and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopies. His current research interests at NREL include the impact of the microstructure of the polymer interphase on the energetics and dynamics of charge separation and recombination, structure-function relationships in charge mobility, and data analysis in complex systems.

Degree(s)

PhD in Chemistry – Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (2023)
MS in Chemistry – The University of Connecticut (2012)
BS in Chemistry – The University of Connecticut (2008)