Rate My Professor Samuel Alvarado

Samuel Alvarado is a Professor in the Chemistry and Biotechnology Department at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He earned a B.A. from Augustana College in Illinois in 2010 and a Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 2015. Since joining the faculty, he has taught foundational and advanced courses, including General Chemistry Lecture and Lab (CHEM 121), Inorganic Chemistry Lecture (CHEM 322), and Inorganic Chemistry Lab (CHEM 325). In 2023, he received the Paul B. and Robert Dykstra Faculty Excellence Award from the College of Arts and Sciences, which recognizes tenured or tenure-track faculty for research, creative, and scholarly activities. As associate professor of inorganic chemistry, Alvarado was part of the faculty team that successfully obtained funding from the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation Program for a scanning electron microscope. This instrument, capable of magnifying specimens up to 300,000 times and identifying chemical elements, supports interdisciplinary science across campus. He teaches a class utilizing the microscope to give students practical experience with its components and applications.

Alvarado's research examines magic sized quantum dots, semiconductor particles 1-100 nanometers in diameter that are larger than molecules but smaller than bulk semiconductors, such as those with formulas Cd13Se13 or Zn34S34. These quantum dots display tunable luminescence across the visible spectrum, from red to blue, with applications in consumer electronics like televisions, though some compositions like CdS, CdSe, or InP pose toxicity or scarcity issues. His projects focus on developing luminescent materials through doping magic sized ZnS quantum dots with small amounts of transition metal ions; studying the electronic structure of these doped quantum dots using experimental methods and computational modeling; and investigating the chemical reactions of magic sized ZnS quantum dots in solution. He holds a WiSys Applied Research Technology Advancement Grant Match for the project 'Producing Polymer-Quantum Dot Composite Materials through Direct Ligand Reaction.' Select publications include Bhattacharjee, U. et al., 'Using ATTO Dyes to Probe the Photocatalytic Activity of Au-CdS Nanoparticles,' J. Phys. Chem. C, 2017, 121, 676-683; Alvarado, S. R. et al., 'Assessing Phosphine-Chalcogen Bond Energetics from Calculations,' Organometallics, 2015, 34, 4023-4031; Alvarado, S. R. et al., 'Inorganic Chemistry Solutions to Colloidal Semiconductor Problems,' Coord. Chem. Rev., 2014, 263, 182-196; Humphries, M. E. et al., 'Ruthenium(II) supported by phosphine-functionalized N-heterocyclic carbene ligands as catalysts...,' Inorg. Chem. Commun., 2013, 37, 138-143; Guo, Y. et al., 'Shape-Programmed Nanofabrication...,' ACS Nano, 2013, 7, 3616-3626; and Alvarado, S. R. et al., 'Photochemical vs. Thermal Synthesis of Cobalt Oxyhydroxide Nanocrystals,' J. Phys. Chem. C, 2012, 116, 10382-10389.