Team Recognition
Dr. Rian Koots Dissertation, 2025 
JPR Christmas Celebration 2025! 
DAMOP2025 in Portland, Oregon 
ICAP2026 in Wuhan, China! 
Mateo Londoño receives IACS Travel Award, 2025 
Maria Sazonova receives Barry Barish Undergraduate Research Award, 2026 
Daniel Julian and Peter Meshkov receive John S. Toll Prize for Outstanding Graduating Physics major, 2025 
“Unplanned Synchrony” 
Mahmoud’s DAMOP2026 Presentation 
Mateo Londoño’s DAMOP Poster, 2026 
Mario’s Poster, Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium 
C60+ He system Team DAMOP Poster, 2026
Group Leader
Dr. Jesús Pérez-Ríos (Assistant Professor)
jesus.perezrios@stonybrook.edu
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Professor Jesús Pérez-Ríos is an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at SUNY Stony Brook University (USA). His research activities include computationally exploring topics in Cold and Ultracold chemistry, Fundamental atomic and molecular processes from a chemical physics perspective, Few-body physics, Application of machine learning techniques to AMO systems, as well as Physics beyond the Standard Model.
After obtaining a Bachelor’s degree from Department of Optics, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), he pursued graduate study at the Department of Physics of atoms, molecules, and aggregates (FAMA), CSIC [Spanish National Research Council], Madrid (Spain) and post-doctoral studies at Laboratoire Aimé Cotton (France), Purdue University (USA), Universidad del Turabo, (Puerto Rico), and continued to become Group Leader at Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (Germany).
Awards and Honors:
- Postdoctoral fellow at École Normale Supérieure, Paris (France) 2012-2013
- JAE-pre fellowship at CSIC [Spanish National Research Council], Madrid (Spain) 2008-2012
- Amazon Web Services collaborative award of $2500 in HPC credits
- 2023 College of Arts and Sciences Godfrey Excellence in Teaching Award
- NSF CAREER Award “Few-Body Processes Including Ions, Atoms and Molecules: From Plasma Physics to Cold Chemistry”
- 2026 Stony Brook Trustees Faculty Award “Ultracold chemistry in charged-neutral systems”
Graduate Students
Saajid Chowdhury (Ph.D. Student)
saajid.chowdury@stonybrook.edu
Saajid loves to learn, teach, and solve problems involving math, physics, and algorithms. He is currently using quantum Monte Carlo techniques to study atom-ion clusters, and gpu-parallelized molecular dynamics simulations to study trapped ions interacting with ultracold atoms.
Ruiren Shi (Ph.D. Student)
ruiren.shi@stonybrook.edu
Ruiren is interested in quantum chemistry and quantum computing. Currently he is mainly calculating the cross section spectrum of the collision between a stationary ion and a moving particle, and improving existing quantum algorithm (Geometric Quantum Adiabatic Evolution) so that it can be used to calculate reaction surfaces.
Daniel Julian (Ph.D. Student)
daniel.julian@stonybrook.edu
Daniel’s research interests include applying machine learning techniques to AMO physics, such as predicting final states of reactive chemical collisions. Daniel is currently involved in the optimization of molecular geometries for the QM7 molecule database project. For fun, Daniel likes to play the saxophone in the University and community band.
Rodrigo Cádiz (Ph.D. Student)
rodrigo.cadiz@stonybrook.edu
Rodrigo is currently working on light-matter interactions in Positronium, applying numerical methods to solve the Optical Bloch Equations from first principles and compare with current experimental data to search for a signal of charge conjugation symmetry violation. Also, he loves teaching physics and math, with over 5 years and 14 courses of experience. Beyond physics, he loves music, playing guitar, and photography.
Mahmoud Ibrahim (Ph.D. Student)
mahmoud.ibrahim@stonybrook.edu
Mahmoud is interested in computational and data science and its applications in physics and other disciplines of natural and social sciences.
Mateo Londoño-Castellanos (Ph.D. Student)
mateo.londoo@stonybrook.edu
Mateo is interested in studying the few-body mechanisms involved in chemical dynamics, specifically at ultracold temperatures. His interests also involve light-matter interaction, open quantum systems and the possible application of quantum matter in high-precision metrology.
Zhongqi Liang (Ph.D. Student)
zhongqi.liang@stonybrook.edu
Zhongqi’s current research focuses on ion-atom and ion-dipole hybrid systems, as well as various physical chemistry systems, such as those involving fullerenes. Outside of physics, Zhongqi enjoys reading, writing, and occasionally making sketches.
Yu Wang (Master’s Student)
yu.wang@stonybrook.edu
Yu is interested in few-body physics. Currently, he is working on refinement of classical trajectory simulation of 3-body recombination processes. His personal interest lies in reading and model building with preferred genres like science fiction and detective fiction.
Undergraduate Students
Pravaal Reddy
pravaal.reddy@stonybrook.edu
Pravaal is an undergraduate in Physics working on utilizing Quantum Chemistry and modeling various atomic and molecular systems using classical and semiclassical approximations. Pravaal is driven by the application of advanced mathematics and computational skills to solve complex problems. Outside of my research, Pravaal enjoys watching movies and playing chess.
Christiana Hadjipavlis
christiana.hajipavlis@stonybrook.edu
Christiana is interested in applying quantum chemistry methods to develop a database of dynamic polarizabilities for organic molecules.
Maria Sazonova
maria.sazonova@stonybrook.edu
Maria is intrigued by quantum chemistry, internal degrees of freedom of molecular systems, atomic/molecular dynamics, and applications of quantum chemistry. Outside of physics, Maria occupies herself with reading, hiking, skating, and/or keeping her hands busy with creative projects.
Andrea Rodriguez de Anda
andrea.rodriguez-deanda@stonybrook.edu
Andrea is interested in quantum chemistry and applying computational methods to solve problems in physics. Currently, she is using density functional theory to perform calculations on various molecules.
Mario Reyes
mario.reyes@stonybrook.edu
Mario’s research interests include computational approaches to atomic–molecule systems and spectroscopy, and he is currently studying diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) by comparing predicted wavelength transitions based on ionization energy differences with observed spectral features. For fun, Mario enjoys playing guitar and running.
Former Group Members (Alumni)
Rian Koots (Ph.D. Student)
During his time in the JPR Group, Rian was interested in using computational methods to study fundamental problems in physics and working on few-body dynamics.
Peter Meshkov (Undergraduate Student)
Peter completed his Undergraduate thesis with Professor Pérez-Ríos, writing exact diagonalization scripts to investigate pendular states of NaCs molecules. He is currently an Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. student at Purdue University.
Miruna T. Cretu was a summer student in the JPR Group, currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge.
Jonathan Smucker (Ph.D. Student)
During his time in the JPR Group, Jonathan was interested in cold and ultra-cold chemistry and in the study of related chemical processes, as well as the effects of the dipole-dipole interaction on pendular states in a lattice. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL).
Weiqi Wang (Master’s Student)
During his time in the JPR Group, Weiqi was interested in quantum chemistry and focused on the development of new tools to deal with complex chemical reaction networks.
Cian Hamilton completed his Master’s thesis with the JPR Group and currently works as a science analyst for Project Eaden.