Julius Oppenheim

Curriculum Vitae

juliuso@princeton.edu · Princeton, New Jersey

Education

  • Ph.D. in Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    May 2024Research advisor: Professor Mircea Dincă · Dissertation: Tailoring Metal–Organic Frameworks for Water Harvesting · GPA 5.0/5.0

  • B.S. in Chemistry, California Institute of Technology

    June 2019GPA 4.0/4.0

Experience

  • Manager, Crystallography Core Facility

    2026 – presentPrinceton University
    • Diffracting and refining single-crystal X-ray diffraction samples submitted by non-super users
    • Maintaining the X-ray facility: backing up facility data, maintaining user logs and records, routine maintenance, coordinating service contracts, and working with suppliers on major and preventative maintenance
    • Training new users
    • Serving as the Department’s contact for Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) on matters related to the facility, and performing and documenting regular interlock checks

  • Research Scholar

    2025 – presentPrinceton University
    • Managed Professor Mircea Dincă’s research group under minimal supervision, including grant writing (one forthcoming grant application as co-PI), scientific editing, project and financial management, and coordination with collaborators and funding agencies for the design, discovery and use of new materials for energy and environmental applications
    • Oversaw day-to-day lab operations: safety compliance, lab supplies and equipment, and vendor relations
    • Mentored lab personnel, organized group activities and events, and represented the group at scientific meetings and in collaborations worldwide
    • Designed the new laboratory space, coordinated with construction vendors, and set up new equipment after the laboratory moved from MIT to Princeton
    • Assisted the Department of Chemistry single-crystal X-ray diffraction facility during the retirement of Dr. Phil Jeffrey

  • Research Laboratory Operations Manager

    2024 – 2025Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Managed Professor Mircea Dincă’s research group, including grant writing (annual and final reports for three grants; raised $620,000 with an NSF grant), scientific editing, project and financial management, and coordination with collaborators and funding agencies
    • Oversaw day-to-day lab operations: safety compliance, lab supplies and equipment, vendor relations, and technology transfer with MIT internal organizations
    • Mentored lab personnel, organized group activities and events, and represented the group at scientific meetings and in collaborations worldwide
    • Organized the laboratory move from MIT to Princeton

  • Graduate Student with Professor Mircea Dincă

    2019 – 2024Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Developed, synthesized and characterized new sorbents for water capture at specific relative humidity
    • Devised new chemistry for post-synthetic modification of metal–organic frameworks
    • Derived new chemical theory for structure–function relationships of capillary condensation
    • Addressed sustainability and cost by developing green synthetic methods
    • Mentored two undergraduate students scientifically and professionally
    • Managed international collaborative teams

  • Research Assistant with Professor Harry Gray and Professor William Goddard III

    2016 – 2019California Institute of Technology
    • Used density functional theory and ab initio methods to resolve long-standing electronic structure problems
    • Developed polarizable force fields for molecular simulations
    • Used density functional theory to investigate reaction mechanisms, including CO2 and CO upgrading

Honors and awards

  • Alan Davison Fellowship

    2023

  • Department of Chemistry Award for Outstanding Teaching, MIT

    2020 – 2021

  • ACS Undergraduate Award in Physical Chemistry

    2019

  • Richard P. Schuster Memorial Prize

    2019

  • George W. Housner Prize for Academic Excellence and Original Research

    2019

  • George W. and Bernice E. Green Memorial Prize, Caltech

    2018

  • Doris S. Perpall SURF Speaking Competition Semifinalist, Caltech

    2017, 2018

  • Ernest H. Swift, Arthur A. Noyes, George R. Rossman SURF Fellow

    2016, 2017, 2018

Talks

  • International Union of Crystallography (IUCr2026)

    2026General approach towards metallic metal–organic frameworks with crystallographic modulations (poster)

  • International MOF2026 Conference

    2026General approach towards metallic metal–organic frameworks with crystallographic modulations

  • MOFs as Quantum Materials (MOFasQM) workshop

    2025Emerging Directions for 1D Conducting Metal–Organic Frameworks

  • Bruker-AXS / MIT Symposium 2025: Non-Bragg Methods for Your In-House Source

    2025Correlated Disorders in Lanthanide MOFs

  • International Symposium on Crystalline Organic Metals, Superconductors and Magnets (ISCOM)

    2024General approach towards metallic metal–organic frameworks with crystallographic modulations

  • 9th International Conference on Metal–Organic Frameworks and Open Framework Compounds

    2024Isoreticular Curves: A Theory of Capillary Condensation To Model Water Sorption within Microporous Sorbents (poster)

  • American Chemical Society Spring Conference

    2024Tunable Low–Relative Humidity and High–Capacity Water Adsorption in a Bibenzotriazole Metal–Organic Framework

  • Inorganic Chemistry Gordon Research Seminar

    2022Isolation of a Side-On V(III)-(η2-O2) through the Intermediacy of a Low-Valent V(II) in a Metal–Organic Framework

Teaching

  • Physical Methods in Inorganic Chemistry (5.068), grader, MIT

    2021, 2022, 2023

  • Inorganic Chemistry (5.04), MIT

    2020

  • General Chemistry (5.112), MIT

    2019

Service and leadership

  • International MOF2026 Conference, Young Investigator Symposium, organizer

    2025 – 2026

  • Environment, Health, and Safety Committee, MIT

    2020 – 2024
    • Led level II laboratory inspections
    • Recommended changes to the Department of Chemistry Chemical Hygiene Plan and Safety Manual
    • Best practices for managing hazardous waste

  • MIT Chemistry Graduate Student Committee, voting member

    2020 – 2024

Skills

Crystallography (powder and single-crystal interpretation and refinement, including synchrotron studies and 3D electron diffraction) · gas adsorption techniques · air-free chemical handling · spectroscopic characterization and theory (infrared, UV-Vis, Raman, NMR, X-ray photoelectron) · computational methods (DFT, molecular dynamics) · magnetometry · instrument repair (high-vacuum and high-pressure systems, basic electronics) · Python · Mathematica · Excel and PowerPoint · 3D printing

Broadly interested in scientific communication, climbing and 3D rendering.

Publications

h-index 23 (Google Scholar, as of October 2026). 14 first-author and 3 corresponding-author publications. See the full list.