Michael Ziebel and Song Lin Join Stanford Chemistry

The Department of Chemistry is pleased to announce the forthcoming addition of two esteemed chemists to our faculty this fall.

Dr. Michael Ziebel will be joining us from Columbia University, where he is completing his postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Xavier Roy. Dr. Ziebel’s research group will work at the interface of chemistry, physics, and materials science, focusing on using our understanding of local electronic structure in inorganic solid-state materials to identify and synthesize new compounds with tailored physical properties. In particular, the group will leverage manipulation techniques developed by the 2D materials community—namely the ability to stack, twist, and strain van der Waals materials near the few-layer limit—as a new design parameter, allowing access to electronic and magnetic properties that would be inaccessible using conventional synthetic tools. By combining these methods with local structural and electronic probes, as well as bulk property measurements, the Ziebel lab will work towards the ultimate goal of on-demand control of lattice, charge, and spin degrees of freedom in quantum materials, enabling the development of more energy-efficient electrical and magnetic devices.

Dr. Ziebel earned his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Northwestern University, where he conducted research with Professor Samuel Stupp on electron donors for organic photovoltaic materials. He then pursued graduate studies at UC Berkeley under Professor Jeff Long, focusing on the design and synthesis of magnetic and electrically conductive metal-organic materials. As a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, he collaborated with Professor Xavier Roy (Chemistry) and Professor Cory Dean (Physics) to synthesize and measure strongly correlated van der Waals materials, specifically engineering charge and spin order in van der Waals magnets through soft chemical intercalation and exploring new materials exhibiting Kondo physics at the two-dimensional limit.

Professor Song Lin will be joining us from Cornell University, where research in his lab combines elements of electrochemistry and microelectronics to advance modern organic chemistry. The Lin lab develops tools and methods that expand the scope and sustainability of synthetic chemistry, leveraging the unique capabilities of electrochemistry and radical chemistry to enable site- and stereoselective transformations. This work has applications across diverse fields, including complex target synthesis, medicinal chemistry, energy, and functional materials. His lab also invents technologies to facilitate the integration of organic chemistry with modern approaches such as high-throughput experimentation, data science, and automation.

Song Lin grew up in Tianjin, China. After obtaining a B.S. from Peking University in 2008, he embarked on graduate studies at Harvard University, working with Eric Jacobsen. He then conducted postdoctoral research with Chris Chang at UC Berkeley. In 2016, Song started his independent career at Cornell University, where he is currently a Tisch University Professor. Song has received several early-career awards, including the Sloan Fellowship, Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award, ACS Cope Scholar, National Fresenius Award, MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35, EPA Green Chemistry Challenge, and Snapdragon Prize. He is currently an Associate Editor at Organic Letters and serves on the Advisory Board of Chem, Synlett, Tetrahedron, and Tetrahedron Letters, as well as  the Scientific Advisory Board of OWiC Technologies.

These appointments strengthen our department’s mission in academic research and excellence in teaching, and we look forward to the many contributions of both colleagues in the years ahead.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Michael and Song to Stanford University.