Zachary Goodwin

My research focuses on the theory and simulation of energy storage materials, such as concentrated electrolytes and 2D materials. Generally, my approach to research involves using first principle methods to simulate materials to discover new effects and explain observations from experiments, which I then try to understand through the development of simple theories. Moreover, I have developed theories for how electrolytes arrange at electrified interfaces for applications in supercapacitors and batteries, developed approaches for electronic structure calculations of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene to understand its broken symmetry phases, and recently developed transferable machine learning interatomic potentials for electrolytes of interest in battery applications. Recently, I have been applying machine learning methods for atomistic simulations to investigate problems such as solid electrolyte interphase formation in batteries and charge density waves in 2D materials, and have been developing simple theories to understanding these systems more generally.