PI: Aurora Pribram-Jones

Current Position Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Affiliate Associate Professor of Physics at UC Merced.

Education After completing their PhD in Chemistry from UC Irvine, where they studied with Kieron Burke as a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellow, Dr. Pribram-Jones completed Lawrence and UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowships at LLNL and UC Berkeley.  She received her BS in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College, and her AS degrees in Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics from Foothill College. 

Research Dr. Pribram-Jones develops finite-temperature and ensemble electronic structure methods for use in materials science, quantum chemistry, and warm dense matter theory.  Dr. Pribram-Jones also collaborates with researchers at Harvey Mudd College and University of New South Wales, using high-performance computing to simulate ordered and disordered complex alloys. 

Community APJ’s activities within the community have included coordinating the Computational Chemistry and Materials Science Summer Institute at LLNL, co-organizing fellowship writing workshops at UC Irvine, mentoring students across a variety of communities, and visiting elementary schools to discuss the many ways to be a chemist and how superheroes rely on metallurgy in the Marvel Universe.

Dr. Lei Chen

Postdoctoral Scholar | March 2024 - Present

Dr. Lei Chen joined the University of California, Merced, in March 2024 as a Postdoctoral Scholar. He is working with Profs. David Strubbe, Aurora Pribram-Jones, and Venkattraman Ayyaswamy for the MRPI program: California Initiative for Solid-to-Plasma Dynamics for Fusion Energy. His research will involve the study of early-time stages of the formation of plasma from a solid under intense laser irradiation, using electronic structure, molecular dynamics, and kinetic plasma simulations. Lei obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2023. He studied the characteristics of intense laser-produced fast electrons and hard x-ray radiation by modeling angularly resolved bremsstrahlung signals with 3D hybrid Particle-in-cell simulations. Lei is also a hiker, a pin & diecast car collector, a bibliophile, etc.

Brittany Harding

Graduate Student, CCB | August 2018 - Present

Brittany Harding is a doctoral student in the Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate program. Her research falls under the discipline of physical chemistry with a focus on density functional theory. Brittany earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her undergraduate research with Dr. Martin Moskovits focused on the physics and chemistry that arises for nanosystems. Before undertaking doctoral studies in 2018, Brittany worked as a laboratory technician at an industrial oil analysis lab. Her current research interests include studying finite-temperature density functional theory and warm dense matter systems. Her hobbies include playing the viola, hiking, and giving back to the community through volunteer programs that work for underprivileged children and their families.

Vincent Martinetto

Graduate Student, CCB | August 2018 - Present

Vincent Martinetto is a doctoral student in the Chemistry and Biochemistry program at the University of California, Merced. He obtained his B.S. in chemistry from Santa Clara University where he worked in an organic chemistry lab. He is interested in the development and exploration of Ensemble Density Functional Theory methods.

Brianna Aguilar-Solis

Graduate Student, CCB | June 2022 - Present

Brianna is a doctoral student joint with the Hratchian group, in the Chemistry and Biochemistry program at the University of California, Merced. She obtained her A.S. in Chemistry from Bakersfield College and her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she conducted research with Dr. Eric Neuscamman and at LBNL with Dr. Sinéad Griffin. Her current research interests lie in investigating excitation methods.

Anthony Osborne

Graduate Student, CCB | June 2023 - Present

Anthony obtained his B.S. in Chemistry with a concentration in computational chemistry from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2023. His previous research included speed up methods for RT-TDDFT, applications of four wave mixing with TDDFT. His current work is with Ensemble Density Functional Theory and the Hubbard Dimer. His hobbies include reading, cooking, and playing video games.

Sage Gorney

Graduate Student, CCB | June 2023 - Present

Sage graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from Cal Poly Pomona in 2023, and is now pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of California, Merced. While an undergraduate student, their research with Dr. S. Chantal E. Stieber involved computational analysis of copper nitrosyls. Their current research interests lie in method development for the investigation of thermal excitations, particularly using thermal DFT and Maximum Overlap Methods. In their free time, Sage enjoys cooking, playing the guitar, and both board and video games.

Bridget Sprecher

Graduate Student, CCB | June 2024 - Present

Bridget is a doctoral student in the Chemistry and Biochemistry program at the University of California, Merced. She received her AS in Chemistry from San Joaquin Delta College and her BS in Chemistry from University of the Pacific. At Pacific, she studied with Dr. Anthony Dutoi, focusing her research on simulated photoelectron spectroscopy. She is currently working on Ensemble Density Functional Theory via density-to-potential inversions and corresponding data in the development of physics-informed neural operators.

Jose Ortiz

Undergraduate Student | January 2024 - Present

Jose is currently working towards a BS in Chemistry with a Chemistry emphasis from the University of California, Merced. His research in the PJ group focuses on the lead-free brass project, done jointly with Harvey Mudd College. His hobbies include playing Super Smash Bros, League of Legends, going to the gym, and journaling.

Alma Mora

Undergraduate Student | June 2024 - Present

Alma Mora is currently working towards her BS in Chemistry with a biological emphasis at the University of California, Merced. Her current research in the PJ Group is density potential inversion on small biochemical molecules to better understand the behavior of exchange correlation on biochemical molecules with Anthony Osborne. In her free time she likes to bake, listen to music, and watch movies.

Audrey Thiessen

Undergraduate Student | May 2025 - Present

Audrey Thiessen is a chemistry major at Harvey Mudd College who is passionate about climate science. As a 2025 summer researcher with the PJ Group, she is continuing her work on the lead-free brass project, investigating how to predict casting shrinkage of compositionally complex alloys. She enjoys kayaking and recently met her first cuttlefish.

Past Members

Dr. Sara Giarrusso

Postdoctoral Researcher | 2020 - 2022

Dr. Sara Giarrusso was a postdoctoral scholar in the Pribram-Jones group, which she joined in September 2020. She received her Ph. D. degree at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam with a project on exact properties and density functional approximations from the strongly-interacting limit of DFT. Her research in the PJ group focused on adiabatic connection theories on the asymmetric Hubbard dimer. She is now a postdoctoral researcher working with Pierre-François Loos at Université Toulouse III.

Dr. Juri Grossi

Postdoctoral Researcher | 2020 - 2022

Dr. Juri Grossi was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Merced. He received his Ph.D. in Exact Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2020, where he worked on strictly correlated systems under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gori Giorgi. He joined the group of Prof. Dr. Pribram – Jones in September 2020, where he focused his research on strongly interacting systems at finite temperatures. He is now a Junior Quantitative Risk Analyst at ABN AMRO Bank, N.V.

Remi Leano

Graduate Student, CCB | 2019 - 2022

Remi’s research in the PJ group investigated formal Ensemble DFT and applications to extended systems. She is now a graduate student in the Strubbe Ab Initio Laboratory at UC Merced.

Zachary Mauri

Undergraduate Student | 2018 - 2022

Zachary obtained a BS in Physics from the University of California, Merced. As a part of the Carson House sustainability community, he is motivated by the pursuit of a more environmentally conscious and eco-friendly future. This passion for conservation has driven his interest in the path towards ICF ignition through the modeling of warm dense matter with finite temperature Density Functional Theory and the Hubbard model.  He is now a graduate student at Stanford University in Materials Science & Engineering.

Emily Junez

Undergraduate Student | 2020 - 2021

Emily obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Merced. Her research in the PJ group focused on modeling adhesion in activated charcoal filters. She is now an engineer at General Motors.

Estefania Cuevas-Zepeda

Undergraduate Student | 2020 - 2021

Estefania obtained a BS in Chemistry with a Biology emphasis from the University of California, Merced. Her research in the PJ group focused on studying how ligand substituents affected their interactions and self-assembly processes. She is now a graduate student at the University of Chicago in Biophysical Sciences.

Sheindel Gamerberg

Undergraduate Student | 2020 - 2022

Sheindel is currently working towards a BS in Bioengineering from the University of California, Merced. Her research in the PJ group centered on semiclassical approximation of partition functions.

Dr. Hector Corzo

Postdoctoral Researcher | 2019 - 2021

Dr. Hector Corzo was a postdoctoral researcher joint with the Hratchian group at the University of California, Merced. Hector received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Auburn University in 2018, where he studied Green’s functions. He did his dissertation on electron propagators with Prof. Vincent Ortiz. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Christopher Perez

Undergraduate Student | 2019 - 2021

Christopher obtained a BS in Chemical Biology from the University of California, Merced. His research was a joint project with Prof. Baxter’s group, focusing on the interactions of organic ligands on Self-Assembled Microcapsules. He is now a Lab Technician at The Deerpoint Group in Madera, CA.