Roman Korol is from Ukraine. He obtained a PhD at Caltech, where he developed and applied the Path Integral methods under the supervision of Tom Miller and Bill Goddard. During his Undergrad Roman has also studied conductance of DNA molecular wires with Dvira Segal at the University of Toronto. Roman joined the Franco group in September of 2023, where he is tackling open quantum dynamics with analog simulators.
Michelle Anderson is from Colorado. She completed her PhD with David Limmer at the University of California, Berkeley where she studied reaction mechanisms in Markovian open quantum systems. She then worked with Chern Chuang at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas studying transport and Anderson localization in disordered systems. She joined the Franco group in 2025 to study applications of numerically exact quantum dynamics. Beyond quantum dynamics, she is interested hiking, biking, and lizards.
Rishabh Dora is from Delhi, India. He received his BS-MS (Dual Degree) in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, India, in 2022. For his MS thesis, he worked on simulating polaron transport in optomechanical arrays. He joined the Franco group in 2022 and is interested in working on molecular dynamics and open quantum systems simulation. Always up for watching good movies and playing basketball outside the lab.
Jhoan Alexis Fernandez Sanchez received his BS degree in Physics from Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia, in 2024. During his undergrad, he became interested in theoretical techniques to tackle nonequilibrium open quantum systems such as the nonequilibrium Green’s functions (NEGF) technique. He joined the solid-state physics group there and worked on the quantum transport of an open interacting quantum dot for his senior thesis. He joined the Franco Group in June 2023 as an i-scholar and worked on including electron correlation effects in ultrafast laser-induced transport using NEGF. Outside of the lab, he enjoys basketball, table tennis, puzzles, and nice food.
Luchang Niu Summer 2025-present
Luchang is a senior undergraduate student majoring in physics at the University of Rochester. He first worked in Prof. Robert Boyd’s group on experimental and theoretical nonlinear and quantum optics, where he studied the propagation of entangled photon pairs through weak turbulence. Then, Luchang worked with Prof. Eberly on entanglement dynamics of quantum many-body systems. During the summer of 2025, he joined Prof. Franco’s group and worked on numerical simulations of open quantum systems and studied entanglement sudden death beyond analytical approximations. Out of the lab, he enjoys watching movies and working out at the gym.
Juan Camilo Rodriguez Betancourt received his B.Sc in chemistry from Universidad del Valle (Colombia) in 2025. During his undergraduate program, he became interested in Open Quantum Dynamics and Quantum information processing. He joined Franco Group in June 2024 as an I-Scholar and worked on understanding how Tensor Network Structures affect the accuracy of the TTN-HEOM method. He is interested in the interface between Quantum Information and the Chemical Sciences.
Anna Spak is pursuing a BS in Mathematics at the University of Rochester. In the summer of 2025, she participated in research on the Variational Quantum Eigensolver at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She is currently preparing for a research project in quantum information science.
Christobal Carrio is an undergraduate student.
Postdoctoral Fellows:
Prof. Chang Woo Kim, Postdoctoral Fellow, Sep. 2019– Aug. 2021. Currently: Assistant Professor, Chonnam National U. (Korea) (link)
Prof. Bing Gu, Postdoctoral Fellow, September 1, 2016– October 30, 2018. Recipient of the 2018 ACS Physical Chemistry Young Investigator Award. Currently: Assistant Professor, Westlake U (link)
Dr. Arnab Kar, Postdoctoral Fellow, July 1, 2014– July 1, 2016. Currently: Engineer at Intel.
Dr. Liping Chen, Postdoctoral Fellow, July 1, 2013– March 1, 2016. Currently: Researcher at Zhejiang U.
Graduate Students:
Dr. Xinxian Chen, Ph.D. Student, September 2019 – October 2025. Thesis: “Tensor Network Decomposition of Open Quantum Dynamics for Efficient Simulation of Next-Generation Quantum Systems”. Currently: Scientist at Huawei.
Dr. Ignacio Gustin, Ph.D. Student, September 2020 – July 2025. Thesis: “Mapping Decoherence Pathways In Molecules”. Currently: PDS at University of Toronto.
Dr. Vishal Tiwari, Ph.D. Student, September 2019 – October 2025. Thesis: “Floquet Engineering the Optical Absorption Properties of Materials”. Currently: PDS at University of Washington.
Rahul Chourasiya, Ph.D. Student, August 2024 – August 2025. Currently: PhD at University of Rochester.
Prof. Leopoldo Mejía, Ph.D. Student, Jan. 1, 2017 – August 18, 2021. Thesis: “Mechanical Control of Charge Transport and Chemical Reactivity in Molecular Junctions”. Recipient of the 2021 ACS Graduate Award in Theoretical Chemistry. Currently: PDS at Berkeley (Rabani). Currently: Professor at Universidad Andres Bello.
Dr. Wenxiang Hu, Ph.D. Student, Feb. 1, 2016 – May 6, 2021. Thesis: “Modeling and control of quantum decoherence in molecules”. Currently: Engineer at Amazon.
Dr. Antonio Garzón, Ph.D. Student, Jan. 1, 2016 – Feb. 25, 2021. Thesis: “Ultrafast Control of Electrons Using Few-cycle Laser Pulses.” Currently: PDS at Northwestern (Tempelaar).
Dr. Zhi Li, Ph.D. Student, Jan. 1, 2014 – Jan 5, 2019. Thesis: “Frontiers in the Atomistic Modeling of Molecular Junctions: Bringing Theory Closer to Experiment”. Currently: Engineer at Meta.
Dr. Alessandro Pirrotta, Ph.D. Student, U. Copenhagen, 2013 – 2017 (co-supervised with Prof. G.C. Solomon). Thesis: “Modulating Pathways for Electron and Energy Transfer Through Molecules”. Currently: Data science Engineer at PFA Pension, Copenhagen.
Undergraduate Students:
Derek Chien, 2022-2024. Currently: Churchill Scholar at University of Cambridge.
Rylee Neumann, 2022-2023.
Junjie Wang, 2022-2023. Currently: Graduate student at Northwestern.
Luis Alejandro Sierra Ossa, Summer 2022. Currently: Graduate student at Northwestern.
Anjana Seshadri, 2021—2022. Currently: Graduate student at Cornell.
Yueheng Min, Summer 2021. Currently: Graduate student at U. Rochester.
Luis Delgado, Summer 2021. Currently: Graduate student U. Chicago.
Garrett Beals, Jan. 1, 2020– May 2021. Thesis: “Finite-Difference Time-Domain Electrodynamics Simulations of Petahertz Electronics”. Recipient of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship 2021. Currently: Ph.D. student at Columbia.
Daniel Carstairs, U. Rochester. Fall 2020. Currently: Graduate student at U. Chicago.
Francisco Fernández, M.Sc. Student, U. Madrid. Summer 2019. Currently: Ph.D. student at UAM.
Yuly Chamorro, Visiting M.Sc. Student, Jan 15, 2019– May 15, 2019. Currently: Ph.D. student at Groningen.
Diego Garay, U. Barcelona. Summer 2018. Currently: Postdoc at Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia.
Pawel Wojcik, U. Warsaw, Poland. Summer 2017. Currently: Ph.D. student with Anna Krylov at USC.
Reshmi Dani, IIT-Guwahati, India. Summer 2016. Currently: Engineer at Intel.
Dr. Ulises Torres, UNAM, Mexico. Summer 2015.