Andrew M. Rappe

Rappe earned his B.A. in Chemistry and Physics summa cum laude from Harvard University (1986) and his Ph.D. in Physics and Chemistry from MIT (1992). His dissertation, “AB initio theoretical studies of transition-metal, molecular, and photonic band-gap materials” was supervised by John Joannopoulos. After a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley, he joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. He became an associate professor in 2000 and a full professor in 2006. == Recognition ==

Honors include an NSF CAREER award in 1997, and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 1999. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2006. He was awarded a Humboldt Research Award in 2017 and a Cheney Fellowship at the University of Leeds in 2018. == Research ==

Rappe's research contributions span several major scientific areas, including ferroelectrics, piezoelectrics, the bulk photovoltaic effect, catalysis and surface science, mechanochemistry, and light-matter interactions. He has made contributions to understanding how these materials change structures at the nanoscale, particularly those driven by temperature. He has worked on the mechanism of the bulk photovoltaic materials based on first-principles calculations. In the field of electrochemistry, Rappe focuses on theoretically designing catalysts for energy conversion. His group has also analysed problems in mechanochemistry, illustrating how mechanical forces, such as stress and strain, can be used to trigger or control chemical reactions on surfaces. ==References==