New Fall 2023 Faculty

2023-08-11

Justin Andrews, Assistant Professor – Inorganic Chemistry

Professor Andrews is focused on designing new porous and solid-state materials for a range of applications related to sustainability and the energy transition. Justin earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Texas A&M University with Sarbajit Banerjee in 2021. His dissertation research focused on the design and use of strongly correlated transition metal oxides for applications ranging from energy storage to photocatalysis. Next, Justin moved to MIT where he worked with Mircea Dincă to design ion conductive solid-state electrolytes based on framework materials. At Purdue, Justin is eager to grow and shape a research program that blends inorganic, solid state, and physical chemistry to design materials that address challenges in computing, energy storage, and desalination.

Qi (Tony) Dong, Assistant Professor – Materials Chemistry/Physical Chemistry

Professor Dong is a materials and physical chemist. Qi earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Boston College. His Ph.D. work focused on catalyst and electrolyte design for electrochemical devices. During his postdoctoral training at the University of Maryland, he explored high-temperature technologies and sustainable materials. Additionally, he worked as a visiting scholar at Princeton University, where he studied non-equilibrium chemical synthesis. At Purdue, Qi's research program focuses on developing electrified processes and novel materials to address energy, environmental, and sustainability challenges.

Ming-Yu Ngai, Professor - Organic Chemistry

Professor Ngai received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. He was a Croucher post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University from 2009-2011 and a post-doctoral associate at Harvard University from 2011-2013. Ming joined the State University of New York at Stony Brook as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 2013 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. Ming’s research aims to develop visible-light-induced excited-state catalysis and radical strategies to address unmet challenges in organic chemistry and to turn small, simple molecules into useful functional molecules to discover new drugs, agrochemicals, and materials.

Jonathan Schlebach, Associate Professor - Biochemistry

Professor Schlebach is a biochemist interested in the mechanisms of protein biosynthesis and folding in relation to the molecular basis of evolution and disease. Jonathan obtained a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and subsequently earned a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Purdue University in 2012 for his investigations of the kinetics and thermodynamics of membrane protein folding. To gain insights into how these processes occur in the context of cellular systems, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His postdoctoral work shed new light on the molecular basis of a variety of genetic diseases. Upon completion of his postdoctoral work, Jonathan joined the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington, where his group developed new approaches to evaluate how the interplay between mutations, small molecules, and molecular chaperones shape the pharmacology of emerging therapeutics. He will launch a series of new projects that will leverage basic insights on the mechanisms of genetic diseases to help discover and target new generations of precision therapeutics.