Chemistry Department Hosting a Fulbright Scholar
University of Delaware Professor Robert L. Opila is visiting the Department of Chemistry as a Fulbright Scholar during the fall 2012 semester. The Fulbright Program promotes international academic exchange by providing merit-based grants for US scholars to study, teach and do research in other countries, and for scholars from other countries to do the same in the US.
After receiving a PhD in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1982, Dr. Opila began work at Bell Laboratories, where he studied the role of surfaces and interfaces in electronic materials and devices. He was named a distinguished member of the technical staff and promoted to the position of technical supervisor.
Since 2002, Dr. Opila has been with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Delaware, where his research interest in the surfaces and interfaces of electronic materials has grown to include photovoltaics and thermoelectrics. He is a fellow of the American Vacuum Society, and one of the editors of the journal Applied Surface Science, published by Elsevier.
At Bilkent, Dr. Opila is currently teaching a graduate course on "Energy-Related Materials," and in addition will be engaged in various collaborative research activities with Prof. Şefik Süzer (also an editor of Applied Surface Science) and his group.