Stefano Toso (PhD ‘23) is a winner of the 2024 Young Researcher of the Year Award. Presented by Eni, one of Europe’s largest energy companies, this award recognizes scientists who have recently completed a doctoral degree focused on sustainable energy technologies.
Stefano is a graduate of the International Doctoral Program in Science and conducted research with Professors Liberato Manna (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia), Luca Gavioli (Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore), and Masaru Kuno (University of Notre Dame). Stefano’s work focused on developing innovative approaches to nanostructuring and advanced characterization of lead halides, a class of low-cost and high-performance semiconductors which are becoming important for sustainable energy applications such as photocatalysis, solar cells, and LEDs. In order to effectively harness the unique properties of lead halides, scientists must be able to control their nanoscale morphology, which determines the properties the material will possess. Stefano systematically explored the structure of these materials at multiple scales, and the insights from his work will enable the design of optimized structures and compositions for future energy applications. Stefano plans to continue exploring these materials as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Professors Dmitri Baranov (Lund University) and William Tisdale (MIT) starting in 2025.