Johnston Research Group

I am the Dr. Elizabeth M. Bains and Dr. James A. Bains Professor of Physics and Astronomy and a member of the University of Tennessee's Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (IAMM) and Center for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (CAMM). My research interests lie in condensed matter physics with a focus on applying numerical methods to strongly correlated electrons, multi-orbital systems, and electron-phonon interactions. I have a specific interest in studying high-temperature superconductivity in several families of materials. My group's work frequently makes direct contact with spectroscopies such as angle-resolved photoemission, scanning tunneling microscopy, optical conductivity, and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, and collaborate closely with experimentalists to unravel the meaning of results obtained using these advanced techniques.

Brief Vita

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Dr. Benjamin Cohen-Stead

Post Doctoral Researcher — Ben completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis and is an expert in quantum Monte Carlo simulations of electron-phonon coupled systems.

Jinu Thomas

PhD Student — Jinu is a physics Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His current research interests lay in modeling resonant inelastic x-ray scattering experiments using advanced numerical methods and their application to studying quantum magnetism and superconductivity in low-dimensional systems.

James Neuhaus

PhD Student — James is a physics Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His current research interests lay in applications of quantum Monte Carlo methods to modeling resonant inelastic x-ray scattering spectra.

Andy Tanjaroon Ly

PhD Student — Andy is a physics Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His current research interests include using Variational Monte Carlo in conjunction with machine learning to investigate strongly correlated electron systems, such as high-T_c cuprates.

Sohan Malkaruge Costa

PhD Student — Sohan is a physics Ph.D. Student at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His current research interests lay in simulating condensed matter systems using advanced numerical methods and mean field approximation.

Debshikha Banerjee

PhD Student — I am a physics Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research interest lies in investigating correlated electron systems with the help of resonant inelastic X-ray scattering using advanced numerical techniques. Currently, she is focusing on understanding the physics of SSH-like electron-phonon interactions using DMRG methods.

Shreekant Gawande

PhD Student — Shreekant is a physics PhD student at UT Knoxville. Broadly, his research interests lie in computational physics. Currently, he is working on linearly scaling semi-classical approaches to study correlated electronic systems.