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Samuel Varner

Headshot of Samuel Varner
Program Year:
4
University:
California Institute of Technology
Field of Study:
Chemical Engineering
Advisor:
Zhen-Gang Wang
Degree(s):
B.S. Chemical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2020
Personal URL:
http://zgwlab.che.caltech.edu/

Practicum Experience(s)

Argonne National Laboratory (2023)

Practicum Supervisor(s):
Juan
de Pablo
Practicum Title:
Application of Machine Learned Interatomic Potentials to Interfaces

Summary of Research

Thermodynamics and phase behavior of electrolytes including room temperature ionic liquids. Kinetic pathways to self-assembled nanoscopic materials in charged and neutral polymers.

Annual Program Review Abstracts

Fellow Poster
: Application of Machine Learned Potentials to Bulk and Interfacial Aqueous Solutions (
2024
)
Fellow Poster
: Entropic Origin of Ionic Interactions in Polar Solvents (
2023
)
Fellow Poster
: GPU Accelerated Ising Monte Carlo With C++ and Julia (
2022
)

Publications

Xu, Y.;Varner, S.; Jin, Y.; Perez-Lemus, G. R.; Montes de Oca, J.; Nealey, P. F.; Darling, S.; Galli, G.; Wang, Z.-G.; de Pablo, J.J. Long Molecular Wires and the Autoionization of Water. PNAS (Under Review)

Varner, S.; Balzer, C.; Wang, Z.-G. A Jacobian-Free Pseudo-Arclength Continuation Method for Phase Transitions in Inhomogeneous Thermodynamic Systems. The Journal of Chemical Physics 2024, 161 (6), 064107. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0220849.

Zubieta Rico, P. F.; Schneider, L.; Perez-Lemus, G. R.; Alessandri, R.; Dasetty, S.; Nguyen, T. D.; Menendez, C. A.; Wu, Y.; Jin, Y.; Xu, Y.; Varner, S.; Parker, J. A.; Ferguson, A. L.; Whitmer, J. K.; de Pablo, J. J. PySAGES: Flexible, Advanced Sampling Methods Accelerated with GPUs. npj Comput Mater 2024, 10 (1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-023-01189-z.

Varner, S.; Balzer, C.; Wang, Z.-G. Entropic Origin of Ionic Interactions in Polar Solvents. J. Phys. Chem. B 2023, 127 (19), 4328-4337. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c00588.

Varner, S.; Wang, Z.-G. Effects of Dilution in Ionic Liquid Supercapacitors. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2022, 24 (44), 27362-27374. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2CP03398D.

Awards

Constantin Economou Prize, 2021
McCormack Award from AIChE Chicago Chapter, 2020
Summa Cum Laude (Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science), 2020
High Honors at Northwestern all 6 quarters attended (AU2018-SP2020)