Sean M. Ryno

Senior Research Scientist

Contact



Business Address

Email :     SRyno@oled.com

Phone :   +1 (609) 671-0980

Address : 375 Phillips Boulevard

                Ewing, NJ, USA 08618

Permanent Address

Email :      Sean.M.Ryno@gmail.com

Phone :    +1 (706) 482-8451

Address : 230 Highland Rd. S.

                Dahlonega, GA, USA 30533

Education



Georgia Institute of Technology

Ph. D., Chemistry / Atlanta, GA / August 2015

Research Advisor: Professor Jean-Luc Brédas

Thesis: Molecular-Scale Understanding of Electronic Polarization in Organic Molecular Crystals [PDF]


University of North Georgia

B. S., Chemistry / Dahlonega, GA / May 2010

Research Advisors: Professor Dan Thompson and Professor Aimée Tomlinson


Academic Awards



  • Georgia Tech Research Fellowship (2010-2014)
  • William H. Emerson Fellowship (2010-2011)
  • Summer Undergraduate Research Experience at Emory University Fellowship (2009)

  • Research Experience



    Universal Display Corporation

    Senior Research Scientist / Ewing, NJ, USA / Apr 2018 - Present

    Research Manager: Doctor George Fitzgerald

  • Applying various quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics methodologies to advancing the understanding of organic light emitting devices.
  • Employing molecular dynamics to understand the morphology of OLED host and dopant materials during deposition on a substrate.
  • Architecting, training, and deploying machine learning models for the prediction of materials properties.
  • Designing and employing additional machine learning techniques to the better understanding OLED materials.

  • University of Kentucky

    Post-Doctoral Scholar / Lexington, KY, USA / Nov 2016 - Mar 2018

    Research Advisor: Professor Chad Risko

  • Applying multiscale methodologies - including QM and MD - using GPUs to understand the structure-property relationships in a series of conjugated polymers.
  • Parameterizing forcefields to allow for the study of novel organic systems using molecular dynamics.
  • Utilizing symmetry-adapted perturbation theory to develop an understanding of the interactions that drive molecular packing in small-molecule organic crystals.

  • King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

    Post-Doctoral Fellow / Student Researcher / Thuwal, KSA / Aug 2014 - Nov 2016

    Research Advisor: Professor Jean-Luc Brédas

  • Applied a multiscale model of bulk polarization energy to model organic photovoltaic materials to capture the complex nature of the energetic landscape at the interface of these materials.
  • Performed molecular dynamics simulations of model organic photovoltaic bilayer interfaces to obtain more realistic interface geometries as compared to previous systems composed of two slabs brought into close-contact.
  • Extracted geometries from molecular dynamics snapshots to generate distributions of electronic couplings and charge transfer state energies to improve the understanding of interactions at organic-organic interfaces.
  • Utilized symmetry-adapted perturbation theory to construct multidimensional potential energy surfaces of the oligoacenes (i.e., benzene through hexacene) to determine how non- bonded interactions change upon dimer transformation and as a function of acene length.

  • Georgia Institute of Technology

    Research Assistant / Atlanta, GA, USA / Oct 2010 - Jul 2015

    Research Advisor: Professor Jean-Luc Brédas

  • Dissertation: Molecular-Scale Understanding of Electronic Polarization in Organic Molecular Crystals
  • Developed multiscale model to determine the bulk polarization energies in organic molecular crystals.
  • Explored polarization in oligoacenes. Multiscale model provides improved agreement compared with other theoretical techniques concerning experimentally observed polarization energies and the polarization asymmetry due to charges of different sign.
  • Employed combined quantum-mechanical−molecular-mechanics methods to examine the nature of intermolecular interactions in organic crystals as a function of molecular structure and chemical substitution.

  • University of North Georgia

    Research Assistant / Dahlonega, GA, USA / Jan 2009 - May 2010

    Research Advisor: Professor Dan Thompson

  • Synthesized a brominated aniline that changed color as a function of temperature, a phenomenon determined to be the result of an enol-keto tautomerization. Employed differential scanning calorimetry to determine the rate of the color change as a function of the number of heating cycles, the rate of back conversion, and the reproducibility of this conversion on the same sample.

  • Research Assistant / Dahlonega, GA, USA / Aug 2009 - May 2010

    Research Advisor: Professor Aimée Tomlinson

  • Carried out density functional theory calculations and investigated the electronic properties of a series of benzobisoxazoles.

  • Emory University

    Research Assistant / Atlanta, GA, USA / May 2009 - Jul 2010

    Research Advisor: Professor Simon Blakey

  • Synthesized novel copper organometallic catalysts for C-H functionalization reactions and employed a series of analytical characterizations (NMR, Mass Spectrometry, HPLC, IR, UV-Vis) to investigate the structure-property relationships.

  • Teaching Experience



    Georgia Institute of Technology

    Atlanta, GA / Aug 2010 - May 2011

    Teaching Assistant for Chemical Principles 1211K

  • Taught four sections of 1211K lab with tutoring sessions.
  • Selected Publications



  • Ryno, Sean M.; Noruzi, Ramin; Karunasena, Chamikara; Pokuri, Balaji Sesha Sarath; Li, Shi; Ganapathysubramanian, Baskar; Risko, Chad. "Following the Crystal Growth of Anthradithiophenes Through Atomistic Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Graph Characterization." Molecular Systems Design & Engineering, 2022, 7, 112
  • Ryno, Sean M.; Risko, Chad. "Deconstructing the Behavior of Donor-Acceptor Copolymers in Solution & the Melt: The Case of PTB7." Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2019, 21, 7802.
  • Li, Shi; Ryno, Sean M.; Risko, Chad. "Exploring Thermal Transitions in Anthradithiophene-Based Organic Semiconductors to Reveal Structure-Packing Relationships." Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 2018, 6, 10924.
  • Ryno, Sean M.; Ravva, Mahesh Kumar; Chen, XianKai; Li, Haoyuan; Risko, Chad; Brédas, Jean-Luc. "Molecular Understanding of Fullerene-Electron Donor Interactions in Organic Solar Cells." Advanced Energy Materials, 2017, 7, 1601370.
  • Haitao, Sun; Ryno, Sean M.; Zhong, Cheng; Ravva, Mahesh; Sun, Zhen-Rong; Körzförfer, Thomas; Brédas, Jean-Luc. "Ionization Energies, Electron Affinities, and Polarization Energies of Organic Molecular Crystals: Quantitative Estimations from a Polarizable Continuum Model (PCM)-Tuned Range-Separated Density Functional Approach." Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 2016, 12, 2906-2916.
  • Ryno, Sean M.; Risko, Chad; Brédas, Jean-Luc. "Impact of Molecular Packing on Electronic Polarization in Organic Crystals: The Case of Pentacene vs TIPS-Pentacene." Journal of American Chemical Society, 2014, 136, 6421-6427.
  • Ryno, Sean M.; Lee, Stephen R.; Sears, John S.; Risko, Chad; Brédas, Jean-Luc. "Electronic Polarization Effects upon Charge Injection in Oligoacene Molecular Crystals: Description via a Polarizable Force Field." Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2013, 117, 13853-13860.

  • Presentations



  • "Electronic Polarization at Organic-Vacuum and Organic-Organic Interfaces" S. M. Ryno, C. Risko, and J. L. Brédas. Poster presented at the 2016 International Conference on Science and Technology of Synthetic Metals (June 26-July 1, 2016), Guangzhou, China.
  • "Charge Polarization in Organic Electronic Materials: From Bulk Materials to Organic Interfaces" S. M. Ryno, C. Risko, and J. L. Brédas. Invited poster presentation at the International Symposium of Functional Materials (January 25-29, 2016), Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa, Japan.
  • "Charge Polarization in Organic Electronic Materials: From Bulk Materials to Organic Interfaces" S. M. Ryno, C. Risko, and J. L. Brédas. Poster presented at the 3rd Annual Solar Future Symposium (November 7-11, 2015), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
  • "Employing Polarizable Force Fields to the Study of Charge Polarization in Organic Molecular Crystals." S. M. Ryno, C. Risko, and J. L. Brédas. Poster presented at the 2nd Annual Solar Future Symposium (November 8-11, 2014), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
  • "Employing Polarizable Force Fields to the Study of Charge Polarization in Organic Molecular Crystals." S. M. Ryno, S. R. Lee, J. S. Sears, C. Risko, and J. L. Brédas. Poster presented at the 11th International Symposium on Functional Ï€-Electron Systems (June 2-7, 2013), Arcachon, Aquitaine, France.
  • "Employing Polarizable Force Fields to the Study of Charge Polarization in Organic Molecular Crystals." S. M. Ryno, S. R. Lee, J. S. Sears, C. Risko, and J. L. Brédas. Poster presented at the 2012 International Conference on Science and Technology of Synthetic Metals (July 8-13, 2012), Atlanta, GA.
  • "Differential Scanning Calormetric Study of a Thermochromic Anil." S. M. Ryno and D. Thompson. Poster presented at the 2010 Herty Medalist Undergraduate Research Symposium (September 17, 2010), Moorehouse College.

  • Computational Skills



  • Proficient in the use of the Python and Bash scripting languages.
  • Proficient in the use of Amazon Web Services to deploy secure and highly-scalable compute environments and custom API-driven programmatic interfaces.
  • Understanding of C, C++, and Fortran languages sufficient to refactor, reverse engineer, or incorporate as Python functions; e.g, via Cython.
  • Extensive use Gaussian, GROMACS, QCHEM, PSI4, Molpro, VASP, MATLAB, Tinker, LAMMPS, Materials Studio, GDMA, Schrodinger, and OriginPro software packages.
  • Extensive understanding of PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Scikit-Learn packages for use in "from scratch" machine learning applications.

  • Affiliations



  • American Chemical Society, Member, 2015-Present