Majed S. Fataftah

Majed S. Fataftah is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. He leads the Fataftah Research Group, focusing on physical inorganic chemistry at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and materials science. His research emphasizes synthetic chemistry to control photophysical properties for quantum information science, magnetic properties for novel materials, and reactivity modeling for catalysis.

Education:

• B.S. in Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of Washington (2013)
• Ph.D. in Chemistry, Northwestern University (2019)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University (2019–2023)

Research Interests:

• Inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry: synthesis, spectroscopy, electronic structure
• Metal-organic frameworks
• Molecular magnetism
• Quantum information science

Key Research Themes: Students in his lab develop expertise in synthesizing small molecules/materials, X-ray crystallography, magnetometry, and advanced spectroscopic techniques (EPR, UV-vis-NIR, Mössbauer). Recent work includes studies on nickel-iron clusters, mixed-valence iron complexes, and vanadium-based molecular qubits.

Labs/Teams: The Fataftah Group (2024) includes researchers like Garrett, Austin, Mari, Arsha, Joshua, Adrienne, Cayden, and Gwen, though formal student lists are not explicitly documented.