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Steven Greenbaum

Steven Greenbaum

Distinguished Professor and Director of Solid State NMR/EPR Laboratory
Research Areas
Magnetic resonance (NMR, EPR) spectroscopy, materials science and energy storage applications

Dr. Steven Greenbaum is in charge of the Solid State NMR/EPR facility and is a distinguished professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

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Profile

Dr. Steve Greenbaum is CUNY Distinguished Professor of Physics at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He is also a science advisor/consultant at Ionic Materials, Inc., a battery materials start-up in Woburn, MA. He served (2008-14) as Executive Officer of the Ph.D. Program in Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center, and numerous times (total of nine years) as Physics Department chair at Hunter.

Dr. Greenbaum earned his B.A. in Physics from Clark University and his Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from Brown University.  He spent two years in the Semiconductor Branch of the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. as an NRC Postdoctoral Fellow, and also spent sabbatical years as a Fulbright Scholar at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and a NASA/NRC Senior Research Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Lab, California Institute of Technology, where he was a member of the team that designed the lithium ion batteries for the successful Mars Rover missions. He has also held Visiting Professor positions in the Chemistry Department at Stony Brook University, the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Rutgers University, the School of Chemistry at Tel Aviv University, the Laboratory for Solid State Physics of the University of Paris-Sud (XI), the School of Chemical Sciences at University of Padova, and the Department of Chemistry at University of Rome, La Sapienza.

Dr. Greenbaum's main research interest involves spectroscopic studies of disordered solids by magnetic resonance and synchrotron x-ray absorption, mostly on materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion (i.e. batteries and fuel cells). He has co-authored over 300 peer reviewed publications and given over 60 invited talks at national or international conferences. He has directly supervised the research of 21 postdoctoral associates, 29 Ph.D. students, and numerous MA and BA research students.

Dr. Greenbaum was the 2001 recipient of the Roosevelt Gold Medal for Science, bestowed by the New York Council of the United States Navy League, and the 2002 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, awarded jointly by the National Science Foundation and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He also received the 2003 Richard Nicholson Science Teaching Award. Dr. Greenbaum was selected as one of eleven Jefferson Science Fellows who served as Senior Science and Technology advisors to the U.S. State Department during the 2014-15 academic year. He was also recognized by the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) by receiving their 2016 Distinguished Scientist Award.

Educational Background

  • PhD in Physics - Brown University
  • BA in Physics - Clark University

Research Interests

  • Evaluating materials for fuel cells and lithium batteries
  • Studying ion transport dynamics in polymer electrolytes using solid-state NMR
  • Investigating atomic structures of lithium-transition metal oxide compounds for battery electrodes using advanced spectroscopic techniques in collaboration with global labs and universities

Courses

Research

One of the foremost technological challenges of the coming decades is energy storage for electric vehicles, military, aerospace, and other applications. Our research concerns the evaluation of materials being developed for fuel cells and lithium batteries, which are two technologies undergoing rapid growth. In polymer electrolytes for both fuel cell and lithium battery applications, we investigate the dynamics of ion transport in these disordered media by solid state NMR methods. NMR is also utilized, along with EPR and synchrotron x-ray absorption techniques (EXAFS, XANES), to study local atomic arrangements and electronic band structure of lithium - transition metal oxide insertion compounds being developed for battery electrodes, and noble metal alloys for fuel cell catalysts. The x-ray absorption spectroscopy is conducted at the National Synchrotron Light Source located at nearby (~90 minutes by car) Brookhaven National Lab. In addition to Brookhaven, our group collaborates with several other national labs (Argonne National Lab, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Air Force Research Lab and numerous universities, worldwide, on the development and characterization of new power sources.

Publications

No. Title
1 14NQR Study of Substituted Anilines and Prediction of in vitro Activity of Sulfanilamides with S.N. Subbarao, P.J. Bray, and T. Oja, Organic Magnetic Resonance 14, 379 (1980).
2 14N Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance in Carcinostatic Phosphamides, with P.J. Bray, Physics Letters 75A, 438 (1980).
3 14N Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance in N-Acetyl Amino Acids, with G.F. Sadiq and P.J. Bray, Organic Magnetic Resonance 17, 191 (1981).
4 14N Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance in Weakly Paramagnetic Organic Dye Cations", with P.J. Bray, Journal of Magnetic Resonance 44, 189 (1981).
5 Pulsed NQR Studies of Electron Distributions in Organic Molecules", with P.J. Bray, Journal of Molecular Structure 83, 35 (1982).
6 14N NQR in Substituted Isatin Compounds" with R. Mulkern and P.J. Bray, Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry 23, 801 (1985).
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Contact Details

Steven Greenbaum

Physics & Astronomy
68th Street North 1220B
212-772-4973
sgreenba@hunter.cuny.edu
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