Jacob Olshansky

Prof. Olshansky (he/him/his) received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Physics from Haverford College ('12) prior to moving to California to pursue his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at UC Berkeley. His dissertation research aimed to understand the mechanism of charge transfer from photoexcited quantum dots and was advised by Paul Alivisatos. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Northwestern University under the guidance of Michael Wasielewski. At Northwestern, he studied spin dynamics of photogenerated charges in synthetic DNA. He joined the Amherst College community in the summer of 2020, where he currently teaches introductory and physical chemistry courses and runs an active research group composed of undergraduate students.