​The Solar Center extends a warm welcome to Prof. Derya Baran who joined KSC in January.

Prof. Baran studied chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, where she was awarded her B.Sc. in 2008 and her M.Sc. in 2010. In 2014 she received her doctorate degree in Material Science and Engineering from Friedrich-Alexander Erlangen-Nuremberg University, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Christoph Brabec.

In recognition of her academic achievements Prof. Baran was awarded the prestigious Helmholtz Association’s postdoc grant in 2015. As part of her grant, Prof. Baran conducted postdoctoral research into the characterization of non-fullerene acceptors and microstructure/recombination correlation in solution processed solar cells at the Center for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, UK. In 2016 she additionally took up a position as a Research Associate at Jülich Forschungszentrum, Germany.

Professor Baran's research interests lie in the area of solution processable organic/hybrid soft materials for electronic devices. Such soft semiconductor materials possess a viable platform for printed, large area, stretchable and wearable electronics that can be used as solar cells, smart windows, OFETs, thermoelectrics, sensors and bio-electronics.