Benjamin Levine

About

Benjamin G. Levine’s research program focuses on developing and applying methods for simulating electronically excited molecules and materials, including those important for solar energy conversion and light-driven chemistry. His work encompasses the development of new theories and simulation methods, the efficient implementation of these methods on high-performance computer hardware, and the application of the resulting tools to solve real chemical problems of fundamental and technological interest. Ben received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 2007 under advisor Prof. Todd J. Martínez before performing his postdoctoral work with Prof. Michael L. Klein at University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. Ben’s independent career began in the Department of Chemistry at Michigan State University in 2011. He joined IACS and the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook in 2020.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Physics
• Quantum mechanics
• Theoretical physics
• Statistical physics
• Psychology
• Engineering
• Materials science
• Electrical engineering
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Consensus statement: Standardized reporting of power-producing luminescent solar concentrator performance

  Joule · 2022 · 138 citations

  DOI

• CAS without SCF—Why to use CASCI and where to get the orbitals

  The Journal of Chemical Physics · 2021 · 61 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  The complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) method has seen broad adoption due to its ability to describe the electronic structure of both the ground and excited states of molecules over a broader swath of the potential energy surface than is possible with the simpler Hartree-Fock approximation. However, it also has a reputation for being unwieldy, computationally costly, and un-black-box. Here, we discuss a class of alternatives, complete active space configuration interaction (CAS…

  DOI

• Bottom-up carbon dots: purification, single-particle dynamics, and electronic structure

  Chemical Science · 2025-01-01 · 49 citations

  reviewOpen access

  -networked carbon and core-surface energy transfer, and heterogeneities, due to the unpredictable location of heteroatoms and often non-crystalline structure. Here we focus our review on three aspects of these systems: (1) coupling characterization with bottom-up synthesis to identify and remove confounding byproducts such as small molecules or hydrogen-rich polymers; (2) single-particle characterization to obtain unambiguous information on carbon dots and highlight the distribution of propertie…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Single-Particle Correlated Imaging Reveals Multiple Chromophores in Carbon Dot Fluorescence

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-05-16 · 12 citations

  article

  Carbon dots are remarkable nanomaterials with many applications, but the sources of their emission are still uncertain. Carbon dots exhibit complex behaviors such as excitation-dependent emission due to their heterogeneous composition and structure. Most studies have been carried out on the ensemble level, where sample heterogeneity remains hidden. Understanding the complex emission of carbon dots requires single-particle measurements. Here, we determined that for red-emitting carbon dots made f…

  PublisherDOI

• Factors governing $${\rm H}_{3}^{+}$$ formation from methyl halogens and pseudohalogens

  Nature Communications · 2025-01-06 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  The formation of $${\rm H}_{3}^{+}$$ following the double ionization of small organic compounds via a roaming mechanism, which involves the generation of H2 and subsequent proton abstraction, has recently garnered significant attention. Nonetheless, a cohesive model explaining trends in the yield of $${\rm H}_{3}^{+}$$ characterizing these unimolecular reactions is yet to be established. We report yield and femtosecond time-resolved measurements following the strong-field double ionization of CH…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• First Principles Simulation Methods for Strong Field Dynamics

  NSF · $480k · 2020–2024

• Accurate Nonadiabatic Dynamics at Conical Intersections in Nanomaterials

  NSF · $405k · 2016–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Todd J. Martı́nez

  Stanford University

  51 shared

• B. Scott Fales

  Pulse Biosciences (United States)

  31 shared

• Marcos Dantus

  Michigan State University

  23 shared

• Yinan Shu

  University of Minnesota

  22 shared

• Richard J. Staples

  19 shared

• Amrendra K. Singh

  Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College

  17 shared

• Aaron L. Odom

  Michigan State University

  17 shared

• Jason Quenneville

  Spectral Sciences (United States)

  16 shared

Labs

• Institute for Advanced Computational SciencePI

Education

• Ph.D., Computer Science

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1990

• M.S., Computer Science

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1986

• B.S., Computer Science

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1984

Awards & honors

• 2017 Journal of Physical Chemistry/PHYS Lectureship
• 2017 OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award

Similar researchers at Stony Brook University

• Robert J. Harrisonh-69
• Marat Khairoutdinovh-51
• Owen Rambowh-47