Doran Raccah

Doran Raccah is an assistant professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, where he leads the MesoScience Lab. He earned a B.A./M.S. in chemistry and a B.S. in applied mathematics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. After working as a senior chemist at Dow Chemical Company, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University with Alán Aspuru-Guzik. Raccah served on the faculty at Southern Methodist University from 2019 to 2023 before joining UT Austin in 2023. His honors include an NSF CAREER Award and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

The MesoScience Lab develops computational tools to study excited-state processes in molecular materials across length scales ranging from nanometers to microns. The group's research spans two primary areas:

1. Stochastic Quantum Dynamics: The group implements formally exact, size-invariant algorithms, including adaptive Hierarchy of Pure States (adHOPS), to simulate exciton transport and non-Markovian effects in molecular semiconductors. By comparing these simulations with advanced spectroscopic measurements, researchers investigate how electronic coupling and vibrational motion govern exciton delocalization and migration over hundreds of nanometers.
2. Bioenergetics and Photosynthetic Modeling: The group develops multiscale, integrative models of photosystem II and related light-harvesting assemblies to examine regulatory mechanisms in natural photosynthesis. By incorporating data from structural biology, spectroscopy and biochemistry, researchers identify design principles for rewiring photosynthetic networks, with the goal of developing strategies to enhance crop yields and algal biofactory production.