Professor Jeffrey C. Grossman has joined our faculty in 2009, filling a position that is the result of an interdepartmental search organized by the School of Engineering for faculty pursuing energy research. He comes to us from Lawrence Livermore National Lab where he was Group Leader of the Computational Nanoscience Group and Executive Director of the Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems. He holds the B.A. in Physics from Johns Hopkins University (1991), the M.S. in Physics (1992), and the Ph.D. in Physics (1996), both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professor Grossman’s area of expertise is computational materials science and engineering with a focus on energy. Specifically, he works on energy materials that are directly relevant to global challenges, such as understanding and predicting nano- and micro-scale materials and interfaces in application areas related to energy conversion and storage, predicting and tailoring nanomechanical phenomena for applications in thermal energy storage and transport, and modeling materials synthesis approaches to gain new insights in atomic-scale growth processes that could lead to new or improved methods for both making and integrating materials building blocks. His group develops new computational tools aimed at bridging the gap between quantum/classical atomistic simulation complexity and the needs of experimental materials science and engineering researchers.
The Grossman group uses theory and simulation to gain fundamental understanding, develop new insights based on this understanding, and then use these insights to develop new materials with improved properties---working closely with experimental groups at each step. The research program includes a strong emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach in order to expand the scientific possibilities beyond any one discipline or field. Professor Grossman’s presence further enhances MIT’s and DMSE’s strong computational materials group and furthers work in the energy research that is so critical today.
This fall, he taught 3.29, Computational Nanoscience for Energy, a graduate-level subject that provides students with the fundamentals of computational problem-solving techniques used to elucidate the atomic-scale behavior of energy conversion and storage nanomaterials. In addition to teaching at the undergrad and graduate level, Prof. Grossman is committed to outreach education, lecturing at venues like Boston’s Museum of Science and San Francisco’s Exploratorium and participating in programs produced by public television.