Victor Murcia

Since I was very young boy, I have had an immense curiosity on the underlying mechanisms of the natural and synthetic phenomena taking place around me. This is probably due to the fact that my parents would take me to their laboratories on occasion and allow me to see their experiments. I was absolutely fascinated by the magic that my parents could do. I would see solutions change from liquids to solids upon my mother's touch and see colorless liquids become vibrant pinks and blues upon the addition of another colorless liquid. I would see my parents setting up glassware in intricate and maze-like combinations and see them write mystical shapes and arrows across blackboards. I was always curious as to what these symbols meant and was even more interested in knowing why is it that those things were occurring.

This fascination with the natural world has not diminished but increased since then. I'm pursuing a Bachelors in Chemistry at the Rochester Institute of Technology with a focus on Physical Chemistry and Materials Science and a double minor in Mathematics and Philosophy. I am part of Dr. Christopher Collison's research group were we investigate and model the photophysics of novel materials with the aims of implementing them into Organic Photovoltaic Devices.