James M. Rondinelli

Dr. James Rondinelli is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, and leader of the Materials Theory and Design Group (http://mtdg.materials.drexel.edu). He received a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Materials from the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 2010-2011, he was the Joseph Katz Distinguished Fellow in the X-ray Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory.

Dr. Rondinelli has (co)-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications with more than 1000 citations. He has given over 50 invited presentations at professional meetings and/or university colloquia around the globe. He received the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2012) and an ARO Young Investigator Program (YIP) award (2012). He is a member of the APS, MRS, ACS, and ACerS, and has organized multiple symposia for these societies on the physics and chemistry of bulk and thin film transition metal oxides.

His research interests are in the first-principles design and understanding of functional complex oxide- and fluoride-based materials—inorganic compounds that are expected to play a major role in new sustainable energy technologies as well as next generation low-power electronic devices. His main contributions include the prediction of interfacial magnetoelectricity dielectric/magnetic metal interfaces; control strategies for activating electronic metal-insulator transitions, rational design guidelines for new forms of (emergent) ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity; oxygen octahedra-induced  phenomena, including electronic and magnetic phases transitions; and new understanding of the optical behavior of materials, enabling the rational design of high-performing non-linear optical crystals.