Rate My Professor Peihong Zhang

Peihong Zhang is a professor in the Department of Physics at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, where he has progressed through the academic ranks: assistant professor from 2005 to 2011, associate professor from 2011 to 2016, and full professor since 2016. Before joining the University at Buffalo, he served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Physics Department and Materials Sciences Division at the University of California, Berkeley from 2003 to 2005. His educational background comprises a B.S. in Physics from Xiamen University in China (1993), an M.S. in Atomic and Molecular Physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (1996), and a Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics from The Pennsylvania State University (2001), complemented by a Ph.D. minor in High Performance Computing from the Institute for Computational Science at Penn State.

Professor Zhang's research specializes in condensed matter theory, utilizing first-principles approaches to elucidate and forecast electronic, structural, and magnetic properties of materials. Key interests include ab initio calculations for materials design, properties and applications of nanostructured materials, and innovative theoretical and computational methodologies supported by high-performance computing. Projects in his research group cover large-scale GW quasiparticle calculations, 2D materials, diamond NV-center physics, phase transition materials such as VO₂, screened Coulomb interactions in solids, multicenter-bonded boron hydrides for hydrogen storage, and Cu-based multinary compounds for photovoltaics. Among his honors are the NSF CAREER Award (2010), American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award (2009), Xerox Award for outstanding Ph.D. thesis in materials (2001), Braddocks Fellowships from the Penn State Physics Department (1998, 2000), and Departmental Awards from Corning Incorporated for Applied Fiber Research (2001) and Integrated Optical Physics (2002). He holds editorial board positions for Matter and Radiation at Extremes, Physical Review B, and Materials. Selected publications feature "Computational Design of Direct Bandgap Semiconductors that Lattice Match Silicon" (Nature, 2001), "Quasiparticle Band Gap of ZnO: High Accuracy from Conventional GW Approach" (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2010), "Dynamic Jahn-Teller Effect in the NV-Center in Diamond" (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2011), "Phonon Assisted Cross-over from Nonmagnetic Peierls Insulator to Magnetic Stoner Metal" (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2014), "Giant Narrow-band Optical Absorption and Distinctive Excitonic Structures of Monolayer C₃N and C₃B" (Phys. Rev. Appl., 2022).