George R. Pack Graduate Student Award Symposium

The George R. Pack Award for Most Outstanding Chemistry PhD Dissertation was established by colleagues, family and friends to recognize in perpetuity Dr. Pack’s role in growing a vigorous departmental research program, his contributions to the University’s research environment, and his appreciation of the key role that graduate students provide in the research process.

Dr. Sashil Chapagain – 2024 George Pack Award Recipient and Speaker

Sashil Chapagain received his Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in May of 2024 under the guidance of Drs. Craig Grapperhaus and Thad Druffel. During his graduate career he worked on the development of tin oxide electron transport layer materials for applications in perovskite solar cells resulting in the development of the first tin oxide material for direct solution-based deposition on top of the perovskite absorber layer. During his Ph.D. studies, he spent 5 months as a visiting student at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. where he worked under the direction of Dr. Matthew Reese and Maikel van Hest with leading researchers in renewable energy. As a Ph.D. student he co-founded SoFab Inks LLC, which was awarded The American-Made Perovskite Startup Prize from the Department of Energy, with fellow graduate students Blake Martin and Peter Armstrong. His Ph.D. research was published in three first-author and eight co-author research articles, and he was co-inventor on a patent. Following graduation, Sashil continued his work with Drs. Grapperhaus and Druffel as a post-doctoral researcher supported by Energy Materials Corporation, a solar module manufacturing company. In January 2025 he joined SoFab Inks LLC as a CSO where he focuses on improving the performance of existing products and developing new products.

Past Recipients