Johns Hopkins University Department of Chemistry
New Chemistry Building
3400 North Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21218
Phone: 410.516.4358
Email: Tovar at jhu.edu
Biography
J. D. Tovar is originally from Waterloo, Iowa. He completed his undergraduate training in chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles where he performed research with Julius Glater and Menachem Elimelech in Civil Engineering and later with Yves Rubin in Chemistry. He pursued doctoral studies in organic chemistry under the guidance of Timothy M. Swager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His thesis research focused primarily on the development of new synthetic methods to construct large thiophene-based polycyclic aromatics. Postdoctoral studies of self-assembling biomaterials with useful electrical properties were pursued in the Department of Materials Science at Northwestern University with Samuel I. Stupp. While in Evanston, he also worked with Mark C. Hersam to probe the electronic properties of single molecules and organic nanostructures chemisorbed onto silicon surfaces under ultra-high vacuum conditions. J. D. began his independent career in 2005 as an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University and was subsequently promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2012 and to full professor in 2016. His research group examines energy transport through synthetically complex organic semiconductors, with interests in small molecule, polymeric and bioelectronic supramolecular systems.