Stach Group
A materials science group at Penn Engineering building the instruments and experiments that let us watch materials work in their native environments.
We develop and apply electron microscopy and synchrotron X-ray techniques to the materials questions driving the energy transition — catalysis, energy storage, solar photovoltaics, wide-bandgap devices, and the nanostructures underlying them. Our work connects new instrumentation, real operating environments, and the specific mechanisms that link structure to function.
The group is housed in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering. Day-to-day, we work across two facilities at Penn: the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM), a multidisciplinary MRSEC focused on soft and hard materials, and the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, Penn's shared nanofabrication and characterization user facility.
Our group is highly collaborative. We are active at Brookhaven's CFN and NSLS-II, Oak Ridge National Lab's CNMS, Argonne's CNM, and the National Center for Electron Microscopy at Berkeley. We are also part of several major research centers: the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (NSF MRSEC), the Center for Single Entity, Nanochemistry and Nano-Crystal Design (NSF CCI), and the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energies to Liquid Fuels (DOE).
We take prospective Ph.D. students through Penn's MSE and ESE graduate programs; if you are applying, mention an interest in in situ or operando microscopy in your statement and email Eric directly. Postdoctoral inquiries are welcome — please send a CV, a short research statement, and two references. Penn undergraduates interested in microscopy or image analysis should reach out about semester- and summer-projects; we occasionally have room for undergraduate researchers on our projects. We do not accept high school students.