One of the grand challenges of materials research is the ability to engineer and tune quantum degrees of freedom in order to discover new properties and phenomena, as well as to harness the flow of energy, charge, and information. The discovery and development of these materials must be guided by a deep understanding of how electrons and atoms in these systems behave in response to external stimuli. For instance, what happens when sunlight shines on a solar panel? How much solar energy will be absorbed by the electrons? How far and how fast can they transport that energy, and how can one design materials to optimize that process? A frontier of this understanding and optimization, which is the central goal of our group,  lies in the control of a material’s excitations and macroscopic properties at the quantum level through the tuning of light-matter interactions and many-electron correlations. Our group uses and develops first principles quantum physics methods, which exploit high-performance computing to calculate many-electron interaction effects and make quantitatively accurate predictions about real materials. We are interested in the discovery and design of novel, highly-tunable, and transient materials, as well as the exploration of fundamental processes, such as exciton transport and coherence, and nonlinear and ultrafast optical response in materials relevant to fields such as optoelectronics, quantum information, and energy research.