Rate My Professor Barry Rand

Barry Rand is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. He serves as Associate Director for External Partnerships at the Andlinger Center and is associated faculty in the Princeton Materials Institute. In the field of Engineering, Rand investigates emerging device concepts and materials for next-generation thin-film electronic devices. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from The Cooper Union in 2001 and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2007. From 2007 to 2013, he worked at imec in Leuven, Belgium, advancing to Principal Scientist, before joining Princeton faculty in July 2013 as Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

Rand's research spans applied physics, energy and environment, materials and devices, and photonics, focusing on the optical and electrical properties of thin-film semiconductors for solar cells, light-emitting devices, and transistors. His interdisciplinary efforts at the intersection of electrical engineering, materials science, physics, and chemistry have advanced organic photovoltaics, metal halide perovskites, and tandem solar cells. Key contributions include demonstrating reduced energy losses in uniform organic solar cells compared to mixed materials, developing efficient and stable perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells, and enhancing perovskite LED performance through heat management and nanoparticle self-assembly. Rand has filed approximately 30 patents related to thin-film electronics and solar energy conversion via Princeton’s Office of Technology Licensing, influencing clean energy technologies. Awards include Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2025), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative award (2023), ONR Young Investigator Program Award (2016), DARPA Young Faculty Award (2015), DuPont Young Professor Award (2015), and 3M Nontenured Faculty Award (2014). Highly cited publications encompass “Efficient perovskite light-emitting diodes featuring nanometre-sized crystallites” (Nature Photonics, 2017), “Perovskites for Next-Generation Optical Sources” (Chemical Reviews, 2019), “Offset energies at organic semiconductor heterojunctions and their influence on the open-circuit voltage of thin-film solar cells” (Physical Review B, 2007), and recent articles such as “Plasmon-enhanced ultralow-threshold solid-state triplet fusion upconversion” (Nature Photonics, 2026) and “Electrolytic gold plating, stripping, and ion transport dynamics through a solid-state iodide perovskite” (Energy & Environmental Science, 2025).