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Welcome to the Spanopoulos Research Group at USF

The Group is motivated by challenges at the interface of Chemistry and Materials Science, pertaining to the development of materials of the future. We leverage our expertise in organic and inorganic synthesis for the design of multi-functional materials for energy and environment-related applications. Strong emphasis is set on the thorough physical and optical characterization of the assembled compounds. As such, crystallography (in-house equipment and synchrotron facilities), spectroscopy and gas/vapor sorption studies for porosity evaluation are employed. The acquired knowledge elucidates critical structure-property relationships, paving the way for the design of new systems with targeted functionalities.

Group News

  • November 2024, hope to see you all at Fall MRS in Boston. Stop by Yannis talk on Monday, EL04.02.02.

  • October 2024, Suchetana joins the group!Welcome! She will be co-advised by Prof. Andiappan.

  • October 2024, we excited for our visit at the SERMACS 2024 in Atlanta. Stop by Yannis talk on Friday morning (#837).

  • October 2024, we showcased the potential of PMHS materials for Military and Defense related applications at the Florida Defense Science and Technology Symposium (FDSTS) 2024 in Orlando.

  • September 2024, we had a great time at the 1st Midwest MOF Conference at Illinois Tech. Excellent talks and cutting edge science. Met again with Prof. S. Kitagawa ten years after MOF 2014 in Japan.

  • September 2024, We are humbled and honored to have been selected as a recipient of the 2024 DOE Early Career Research Program Award!!

  • September 2024, Yannis was named a "2024 Emerging Investigator" from the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, which highlights rising stars in materials chemistry research.

  • September 2024, Andrea and Audrey join the Group. Welcome!

  • August 2024, Yannis is named a Top Scholar by ScholarGPS, among the top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide (prior 5 years).

  • August 2024, Ioannis and Zois join the group. Welcome!

  • July 2024, Ali and Yannis had a great time at GRC Solid State! See you all at NASSCC 2025.

  • June 2024, Pranathi joins the group. Welcome!

  • May 2024, Amishi joins the group. Welcome!

  • May 2024, our recent work on the development of a new family of materials, namely Fullerene Metal Halide Semiconductors (FMHS) is highlighted by Perovskite-Info!

  • May 2024, our BSL2 lab space is under construction!

  • May 2024, Yannis is awarded the "High Impact Practices (HIPs) Excellence Award".

  • May 2024, congrats to Alissa for winning the "Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research Award".

  • April 2024, Adelia joins the group. Welcome!

  • March 2024, congrats to Brianna for winning the "Joseph Stanko Inorganic Chemistry Award" and the "Phi Lambda Upsilon Award".

  • March 2024, congrats to Brandon for winning the "Clear Spring Undergraduate Research Award".

  • March 2024, congrats to Nick for winning the "Outstanding General Chemistry II Peer Leading Award".

  • March 2024, Yannis is elected as a full member to Sigma Xi , The Scientific Research Honor Society.

  • March 2024, congrats to Ali for winning the 2024 Martin Travel Award.

  • March 2024, congrats to Sarah and Alissa for wining the best presentation award at the 2024 R. Castle Research Conference.

  • March 2024, Stephanie and Nick joined the group. Welcome!

  • March 2024, hope to see you all in our 22nd Raymond N. Castle Student Research Conference on March 2nd. Multiple members from our group will give presentations.

  • November 2023, we had a great time in the SIPS2023: Poeppelmeier International Symposium on Solid State Chemistry, discussing about the PMHS materials.

  • November 2023, congrats to Brandon for winning the 2023 ABRCMS Best Poster Award!

  • November 2023, Ioannis is elected "Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM)".

  • October 2023, congrats to Brandon for winning the 2023 ABRCMS Travel Award!

  • September 2023, Amrit joins the group. Welcome!

  • August 2023, Magdy joins the group. Welcome!

  • August 2023, our first international high school student from the Netherlands joined us for a month. Welcome Meike!

  • August 2023, we had great time at NASSCC 2023 in Calgary!See you all in 2 years in Iowa.

  • July 2023, congrats to Brandon for winning the AIR Summer Grant!

  • June 2023, I am excited to share that University of South Florida is officially a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU)! This is a significant recognition of our commitment to excellence. Congrats to all for the hard work!

  • June 2023, Ali will be visiting Northwestern for the ACA Summer Course in Chemical Crystallography.

  • June 2023, Brianna will be visiting CSIRO in Australia for a short internship in perovskite photovoltaics. Very excited about this collaboration.

  • May 2023, Suchi joins the group. Welcome!

  • March 2023, congrats to Amanda for winning the Jay Worrell Memorial Scholarship!

  • March 2023, congrats to Ali for winning the award for best oral presentation at 2023 Raymond N. Castle Conference!

  • February 2023, our workshop on "Characterization methods in solid state chemistry", part of CONF-MCEE-2023, is successfully finished. We had 14 participants and 2 invited speakers.

  • February 2023, Ayush, Rishab and Varun join the group. Welcome guys.

  • January 2023, the first publication from our group on the generation of porosity to metal halide semiconductors is accepted in Angewandte Chemie. Congrats Ali and team!

  • January 2023, Sarah joins the group. Welcome!

  • January 2023, Anamika joins the group. Welcome!

  • November 2022, Look forward to see friends and collaborators at Fall MRS in Boston. Feel free to stop by Yannis talk on 12/01 on Chiral Semiconductors: "EN04.10.04: Synthesis, Characterization and Optical Properties of Chiral Metal Halides".

  • September 2022, Neelam and Mina joined the group. Welcome!

  • August 2022, Brianna and Kamal joined the group. Welcome!

  • August 2022, our second group alumni Mike is off to Georgia Tech!Good luck!

  • July 2022, We had a great time at the GRC Solid State Chemistry, NH. Diverse and highly impactful research topics. See you all in 2 years.

  • July 2022, Brandon and Georgios joined the group. Welcome!

  • July 2022, Ali's first paper as a co-author is published!More to come.

  • June 2022, we are excited as we received our first grant as an independent research group from ACS-Petroleum Research Fund (PRF).

  • June 2022, Daria, Amanda and Shahedul join the group. Welcome guys.

  • June 2022, our custom made ventilation system for our oven station is installed.

  • May 2022, Yannis received a faculty affiliate appointment at the Dept. of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at USF. Deeply honored.

  • May 2022, our first group alumni Leah graduates.

  • April 2022, Leah and Alissa presented their work at the Raymond N. Castle conference.

  • March 2022, our last piece of equipment (FS5) is installed and we are fully operational.

  • January 2022, Alissa and Mike join the group. Welcome.

  • November 2021, Leah joins the group as the first undergraduate student. Welcome Leah.

  • November 2021, the lab space is ready to host our ideas and our dreams. IDRB 211 has hosted Profs. Michael Zaworotko, Mohamed Eddaoudi and Shengqian Ma in the past. Very big shoes to fill.

  • October 2021, Ali joins the group as the first graduate student. Welcome Ali.

  • August 2021, group is established at USF Chemistry.

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