University of Virginia
E-mail: stephen_mcdonnell @ avs.org

STEPHEN McDONNELL graduated from Dublin City University with a B.Sc. in applied physics in 2004 and a Ph.D. in physical sciences in 2009 under the supervision of Prof. Greg Hughes. He worked as a postdoctoral research and research scientist in Materials Science Department at UT-Dallas with Prof. Robert Wallace where his work include studying nucleation in atomic layer deposition, atomically precise manufacturing, and 2D materials integration for nanoelectronics.

In 2015 he joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Virginia as an Assistant Professor. He has co-authored more than 90 peer reviewed articles. He is a recipient of the 2018 TMS Functional Materials Division Young leaders professional development award and serves as chair on their Nanomaterials committee. 

His current research interests are centered on the integration of 2D materials into device architectures involving interfaces with 3D materials. Device applications for these materials include photovoltaics, logic, low powered transistors, flexible electronics, thermoelectrics, and photoelectrochemistry. The McDonnell group seeks to synthesis 2D materials Molecular Beam Epitaxy and study their electronic structure by in-vacuo photoelectron spectroscopy techniques including XPS, and APRES. The group correlates processing conditions with resultant materials structure and interface chemistry while engaging in collaborations to investigate how this impacts device relevant properties such as contact resistance, thermal boundary conductance, photocurrents, and ZT.

McDonnell is also currently investigating the anti-viral properties of copper based alloys. In this work he correlated the surface chemistry with corrosion behavior and anti-viral efficacy.  With a background in surface science and continued focus on in-situ ultra-high vacuum experiments, the AVS has been a natural society for Prof. McDonnell and he has been a member since 2010.

He was awarded the EPMD Post-doctoral travel grant in 2013. The first talk given by his first student was at the 2016 AVS in Nashville and he has four publications in AVS journals.