Spencer Wyant
SWyant @ mit . edu
About
I obtained my bachelors in chemical engineering at UMass Amherst in 2014 with a focus in materials science and a minor in computer science. I am currently a first year doctoral candidate in the Materials Science and Engineering department here at MIT. Despite a strong dislike for cold weather, I've lived over half my life in Massachusetts, and going to MIT has done nothing to break this trend.
Research Interests
My research interests are focused on the defect chemistry and mesoscopic structure of functional oxides. Among computational material scientists, there has been significant interest in understanding the relationship between atomistic composition/structure and material functionality. However computational limitations have prevented detailed and accurate investigations into material features that exist at spatial scales one or two orders of magnitude larger than the atomistic scale. To address this issue and to facilitate materials design within the rich feature space of defects and interfaces, a multiscale approach will be utilized incorporating DFT derived neural network potentials for use in molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations.
Personal Interests
- Reading far too many articles on the internet
- Alternative economic systems, open source technology, (see the future p2pfoundation.net)
- Programming of various kinds (small utilities, web programming, pretending I could be a software architect)
- Total music junkie
Current Project
Photovoltaics
Our current focus is on the defect chemistry of tin-doped Ga2O3. Using DFT, MD, and MC methods, we will investigate the stability of various defect configurations under different dopant and oxygen environments and their effects of Ga2O3 conductivity.