Sustainability and Energy Fellow
2026 Cohort
PhD program: Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
Fellowship mentors: Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, PhD, and Richard D. Schaller, PhD, Department of Chemistry, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Diana LaFollette received her PhD in materials science and engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2026 and her bachelor’s in chemical engineering with a focus in sustainable energy from the University of Southern California in 2021. Her PhD dissertation focused on understanding fundamental mechanisms driving crystallization and degradation of halide perovskites. Halide perovskites are an extremely promising novel semiconductor, particularly for solar cells, offering high efficiencies, low costs, and easy fabrication. However, perovskite solar cells struggle with long-term stability, limiting their commercialization. By using advanced characterization techniques at the Department of Energy National Laboratories, Diana studied crystallization and degradation of these materials at the molecular level to then engineer more stable solutions.
At Northwestern, co-mentored by professors Mercouri Kanatzidis and Richard Schaller, Diana will continue her studies of halide perovskite degradation through advanced characterization. She will synthesize novel semiconductor compositions and structures while developing characterization techniques to understand their behavior across time scales. Degradation can initiate within picoseconds but continue evolving for hours. To understand the true causes and engineer meaningful solutions, both ultrafast and in-operando characterization are required. By examining the fundamental processes that limit perovskite solar cells across time scales, she aims to develop the understanding needed to improve stability and move toward a commercially viable, scalable renewable energy technology.