Rate My Professor Erik Grumstrup

Erik Grumstrup is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Montana State University, specializing in nanoscale spectroscopy of materials and chemical systems. He also serves as Program Director for the Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program since 2022. His research employs nonlinear microscopy and ultrafast laser spectroscopy to investigate ultrafast carrier dynamics, excited state transport, and charge carrier dynamics in complex materials for applications in solar energy, catalysis, and electronics. Grumstrup investigates how atomic-scale interactions couple with mesoscopic interfaces and defects to influence material properties on scales from 10 nanometers to 10 microns. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2011, with a dissertation on ultrafast photophysics using optical pulse shaping under Prof. Niels H. Damrauer. He received a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 2006. His postdoctoral work included an Energy Frontier Research Center fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2011-2013) focused on ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy of light-harvesting polymers, and a National Research Council Research Associateship at the Army Research Office (2013-2014) on ultrafast pump-probe microscopy of semiconductor nanostructures.

Grumstrup joined Montana State University as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2014, promoted to Associate Professor in 2020. He has garnered significant recognition, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2019, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award in 2017, Department of Energy Early Career Research Award in 2015, James and Mary Ross Provost’s Award for Excellence in teaching and scholarship in 2023, and Montana State University College of Letters and Science Outstanding Teaching Award in 2022. His work has amassed over 1,800 citations, with key publications such as “Rapid Exciton Transport and Structural Defects in Individual Porphyrinic Metal Organic Framework Microcrystals” (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2024), “Direct Correlation of Charge Carrier Transport to Local Crystal Quality in Lead Halide Perovskites” (Nano Letters, 2020), “Quantifying Noise Effects in Optical Measures of Excited State Transport” (Journal of Chemical Physics, 2024), and “Ultrafast Excited State Transport and Decay Dynamics in Cesium Lead Mixed-Halide Perovskites” (ACS Energy Letters, 2017). Grumstrup contributes to the field through service as General Chair of the 2023 Northwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Chair of the University Laser Safety Committee since 2020, NSF Chemistry panel member, and guest editor for a Journal of Physical Chemistry special issue on time-resolved microscopy.