Dr. Vrindaa Somjit

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Education

• Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2022); Advisor: Prof. Bilge Yildiz
• B. Tech. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology-Trichy, India (2016)

Professional Affiliations

• Member of the Materials Research Society (MRS)

Areas of Interest

• Points defects and interfaces
• Electronic structure
• Ab initio thermodynamics

Experience

• 2022-Present: Postdoctoral Appointee, Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory
• 2022 Summer: Postdoctoral researcher, Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Advisor: Prof. Bilge Yildiz
• 2016-2022: PhD candidate and MIT Energy Initiative Fellow, Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Advisor: Prof. Bilge Yildiz
• 2015-2016: Undergraduate research assistant, National Institute of Technology-Trichy, India; Advisor: Prof. S. Natarajan
• 2015 Summer: DAAD-WISE scholar, Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials, Freiburg, Germany; Advisor: Dr. Dirk Helm
• 2014 Summer: Research intern, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras; Advisor: Prof. K. C. Hari Kumar

Publications

• V. Somjit and B. Yildiz
  Atomic and electronic structure of Al₂O₃/Al interface during oxide propagation probed by ab initio Grand Canonical Monte Carlo.
  ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 14, 42613 (2022)
• Z. J. Tan*, V. Somjit*, B. Yildiz and N. X. Fang (*equal contribution)
  Electronegative metal dopants improve switching consistency in Al₂O₃ resistive switching devices.
  Phys. Rev. Mater. accepted (2022)
• K. Daehn, B. Ravi, J. Gregory, M. Berlinger, V. Somjit and E. Olivetti
  Innovations to decarbonize materials industries.
  Nat. Rev. Mater. 7, 275 (2022)
• V. Somjit and B. Yildiz
  Doping α-Al₂O₃ to reduce its hydrogen permeability: Thermodynamic assessment of hydrogen defects and solubility from first principles.
  Acta Materialia, 169, 172 (2019)