Research accomplished by the Hutchison group would not be possible without support from the following sources:

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation funds fundamental research and has greatly supported multiple projects of our research, across chemistry, materials, engineering, machine learning, and other computational resources, including:

  • “Multiscale Modeling, Simulation and Optimization for Designing Organic Solar Cells” (CBET-1404591)
  • “Designing Highly Polar Self-Assembled Molecular Piezoelectronic Materials” (DMR-1608725)
  • Advancing a Data-Driven Discovery and Rational Design Paradigm in Chemistry (CSE-1761990)
  • Conformer Toolkit: Generating Accurate Small Molecule Conformer Ensembles (CHE-1800435)

Department of Energy (Basic Energy Sciences)

The BES program supports basic scientific research to lay the foundations for new energy technologies and to advance DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security. BES research emphasizes discovery, design, and understanding of new materials and new chemical, biochemical, and geological processes. The ultimate goal is to better understand the physical world and harness nature to benefit people and society.

BES has supported a variety of theoretical chemical science, charge transport, and other related research, including:

  • Genetic Algorithms for Rapid Molecular Materials Screening (DE-SC0019335)

American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund

The ACS Petroleum Research Fund’s vision is to “…support innovative fundamental research, advanced scientific education, and the careers of scientists, to aid in significantly increasing the world’s energy options.”

  • “Tailorable Organic Nanoscale Piezoelectrics for Energy Harvesting” (49002-DN110)

Air Force Office of Scientific Research

The AFOSR supports scientific research that has the potential of benefiting both wartime and peacekeeping efforts in three distinct avenues: 1) aerospace, chemical and material sciences, 2) mathematics, information and life sciences, and 3) physics and electronics. In addition, the program supports graduate and undergraduate level education and provides unique funding opportunities through its ‘special programs.’

  • “Novel High-Activity Organic Piezoelectric Materials: From Single-Molecule Response to Energy Harvesting Films” (FA9550-12-1-0228)

Research Corporation for Science Advancement

Through the Cottrell Scholar Awards program, ResCorp funds early career faculty members at U.S. institutions who are committed to excellence in both research and undergraduate teaching. The main goal of the CSA program is to reinforce the “university scholar model,” which maintains that only through a balance of research and teaching may we both attract and retain young researchers in scientific fields.

  • Cottrell Scholar Award 2012 “Molecular Piezoelectrics: Building Responsive Electromechanical Materials From the Bottom Up”
  • Cottrell Scholar Collaborative “Cottrell Repository for Effective Science Teaching ”

University of Pittsburgh

Pitt offers funding for a variety of research avenues within the undergraduate and graduate curricula. Funded through the university, the Office of Sponsored Projects provides assistance in the form of information services, project and proposal development assistance, and grants and contracts administration for preaward and selected post-award tasks.

  • Seed Grant, Center for Energy “Simulation for Rational Design of Realistic Highly-Efficient Organic Solar Cells”
  • Central Research and Development Fund “Novel High-Activity Organic Piezoelectric Materials: From Single-Molecule Response to Energy Harvesting Films”

High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTI)

HPTi focuses on the technology challenges of the federal government. “We seek out the most challenging opportunities in a variety of disciplines ranging from systems engineering to secure software development to advanced program management to computational science.”

  • PETTT “Enhancing Periodic Boundary and Polymer Simulations Using Avogadro”


Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation

The purpose of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc., is to advance the science of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related sciences as a means of improving human relations and circumstances throughout the world. Established in 1946 by chemist, inventor, and businessman Camille Dreyfus as a memorial to his brother Henry, the Foundation became a memorial to both men when Camille Dreyfus died in 1956. Throughout its history the Foundation has sought to take the lead in identifying and addressing needs and opportunities in the chemical sciences.

Pitt Center for Research Computing

We heavily use computational resources from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research Computing through the resources provided. This has typically included 500-700,000 CPU-hours each year, plus additional GPU allocations.

Open Science Grid

We have also used unlimited resources provided by the Open Science Grid, which is supported by the National Science Foundation award 1148698, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Google Summer of Code (Open Chemistry)

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) supports students working on open source coding each summer, and has funded several projects through the Open Chemistry “umbrella” organization.