Congratulations to Sebastian Fernandez, PhD candidate for being the first Stanford student to be awarded a U.S. Department of Energy IBUILD Graduate Research Fellowship. Sebastian’s research in Professor Dan Congreve’s Lab deals with perovskite LEDs and their potential to be employed in solid-state lighting, next-generation display technologies, and quantum computing applications.

The IBUILD Graduate Research Fellowship Program equips its fellows with dedicated professional development programs to guide them towards their preferred career path (e.g., academia, industry, national lab, etc.), networking opportunities with other building energy efficiency experts across the U.S., and financial support to conduct their doctoral research.

Sebastian states, “Throughout my interviews with various DOE-affiliated researchers, IBUILD fellowship selection committee members, and affiliates from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), it was absolutely clear how excited everyone in the room was for the future of energy efficiency technologies in the United States. I had a great time explaining my proposed research to truly commercialize perovskite LEDs for solid-state lighting applications as well as my plans to further diversify engineering academia.”

To read more about Sebastian’s research proposal, he was also named a finalist/runner-up in the ACS Nano Letters Seed Grant Program, North America Region where his work is highlighted in a Nano Letters Viewpoint.