Leveraging dynamic chemical processes for next generation materials
Welcome to the Bischak Lab at the University of Utah!
We are an interdisciplinary lab that investigates dynamic chemical and structural processes in materials important for clean energy and healthcare applications. We use advanced scanning probe, electron, and optical microscopies to uncover these dynamic processes and molecular design principles to control materials properties.
We are currently looking for graduate students and undergraduate researchers. Please contact us here if you are interested.
Huge congratulations to our 2026 graduates!
Congratulations to Dr. Garrett Collins for defending his dissertation!
Connor speaks at the Quantum Science & Technology Symposium at the University of Utah
Congrats to Delaney Miller for winning a Best Poster Award at the ACS PMSE poster session at the ACS Spring Meeting in San Diego
Bischak lab trains for the 2034 SLC Olympics (March 2025)
ALS Crew December 2024
Emily presenting her poster at MRS Boston 2024
Group at MRS Boston 2024
Summer frozen yogurt
Bischak Group Summer 2024
Bischak Group 2024
Bischak group celebrating the end of the semester at a Utah Jazz game
Utah representation at ALS Beamline 7.3.3!
Seth giving a great talk at MRS Fall 2023
Congrats to Rand on the MRS 2023 Best Poster Award!!
Had a great time at MRS Spring 2023 in San Francisco!
ALS User Executive Committee 2023 - It was great to meet everyone in person!
New cathodoluminescence microscope installed in the Utah Nanofab!
First group barbeque at Connor's house!
Excited to be a Machine Learning in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Awardee! Thank you to the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation!
Our Vista One Photoinduced Force Microscope was installed! Thank you Molecular Vista!
Excited to be an invited speaker at the 2022 NanoScientific Symposium Americas!
News
5/14/2026 - Congrats Garrett for publishing his paper in JACS!
This paper is our lab’s first project on robotics and machine learning and a collaboration with the Sigman group.
5/4/2026 - Congrats to Perry and Seth for winning summer fellowships!
Perry was awarded the Joel Harris Graduate Fellowship in Analytical Chemistry and Seth was awarded the Wilkes Dissertation Fellowship. Seth was also awarded the Gary Cutler Energy Prize!4/30/2026 - Huge congratulations to our lab graduates!
Garrett, Seth, Jolene, Zach, Emily, and Nathan all graduated this week! Huge congratulations to them!
4/29/2026 - Connor was named a PMSE Early Investigator!
He will be giving a talk on the lab’s work on organic mixed conductors at the 2026 Fall ACS National Meeting.4/22/2026 - Garrett defended his dissertation! Congratulations to Dr. Garrett Collins!
Garrett is the first student in the group to defend his dissertation! He will start as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Erin Ratcliff at Georgia Tech this summer!
4/12/2026- Delaney and Emily are awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships!
Former undergraduate Delaney Miller and current undergraduate Emily Dalley were both awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships! Huge congrats to Delaney and Emily! Check out their work from the group here and here.
4/6/2026- Rae’s paper on meltable Mn-based hybrid metal halides was just published in Inorganic Chemistry!
This work introduces a new class of Mn-based zero-dimensional hybrid metal halides that exhibit melting temperatures below their decomposition thresholds, enabling solvent-free processing of optoelectronic materials. This behavior is achieved by incorporating oligo(ethylene glycol) ammonium cations, which modulate intermolecular interactions to stabilize the meltable phase. Check it out here.
3/4/2026- Perry’s paper on controlling chirality through solid-solid phase transitions was just published in JACS!
We demonstrate that incorporating the chiral additive S/R-BTS into achiral 2D hybrid perovskites induces strong chiroptical responses while preserving their intrinsic solid–solid phase transitions. These phase transitions reversibly shift the excitonic absorption and circular dichroism spectra, enabling temperature-driven switching of the material’s chiroptical properties within a single semiconductor system. Check it out here.
1/29/2026- We just published a new ChemRxiv preprint led by Garrett Collins and Sarah McCormack (Sigman Group)!
This was a fun collaboration with the Sigman lab and the first use of our spectroelectrochemistry robot to understand the role of ions in OMIECs using a dataset of 94 sulfonate ions. See the preprint here.
1/20/2026 - Sofia Perez, an undergraduate researcher, was just highlighted in the Office of Graduate Research Student Spotlight Series! Congrats Sofia!
Learn about her research here!
12/24/2025 - Group awarded an NSF CAREER Award
We are excited to announce that he group has been awarded an NSF CAREER Award to study chirality transfer in conjugated polymers.12/2/2025 - Delaney and Thy’s paper on solvent engineering of organic mixed conductors is out in ACS Materials Letters!
We show that mixing DMSO and pyridine in conjugated polymer precursor solutions results in highly oriented and crystalline films of poly[3-(4-carboxybutyl)thiophene], leading to efficient transistor performance.
8/29/2025 - Connor joins the Early Career Board of Nano Letters!
Excited to give back to the journal and work with the other members of the Early Career Board.
8/21/2025 - Garrett’s paper on understanding the role of fluorinated ions on OECT performance is out in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces!
We show that fluorinated ions expel water from the conjugated polymer active layer which leads to enhanced OECT performance (most of the time).
8/1/2025 - The group presented at the first annual Intermountain Convergence Symposium, a collaborative conference with the University of Utah, Utah State, BYU, and Weber State.
8/1/2025 - Congratulations to Becket and Aadam for their end of the summer presentations! We enjoyed hosting two high school intern this summer!
7/26/2025 - Seth’s paper on enhancing organic electrochemical transistor performance by blending hydrophobic and hydrophilic n-type mixed conductors is out in Advanced Materials!
We show that we can enhance the performance of organic electrochemical transistors by adding small amounts of a hydrophobic n-type polymer to a hydrophilic n-type mixed conductor.
6/11/2025 - Perry’s research is highlighted by the University of Utah!
Read the full article here.
5/12/2025 - Perry’s paper was just published in Matter!
We show that 2D perovskite phase transitions can either redshift or blueshift the photoluminescence emission depending on the . Read the paper here.
4/18/2025 - Congrats to ACCESS Scholars Liz, Bodie, and Becca on their poster presentations!
3/25/2025 - Undergraduate Delaney Miller wins the Best Poster Award from PMSE at the 2025 Spring ACS Meeting in San Diego, CA
Big congratulations to Delaney!
1/29/2025 - Wilkes Postdoctoral Fellow Jyorthana Muralidhar is on the Wilkes Center Podcast.
Jyorthana talks about our research in controlling phase transitions in hybrid materials for next-generation refrigeration and semiconductor technologies.12/6/2024 - Had a great time at the Materials Research Society Meeting in Boston! Great presentations by Perry, Jolene, Emily, and Seth!
