Chris Cooper, a senior studying chemical engineering and economics, is only the second Churchill Scholar to come from NC State. This prestigious program accepts only two nominations each from over 100 participating institutions and only awards 15 students in total. It will fund Cooper’s year-long, research-based graduate program at the University of Cambridge this fall.

Since the early 1960s, the Churchill Scholarship has encouraged scientific exchange between the United States and the United Kingdom as per the wishes of the late Winston Churchill. It goes to students studying science, mathematics or engineering; and Cooper’s research specifically will focus on dye-sensitized solar cells.

“The general premise behind solar cells is to harness energy from the sun and turn it into electricity,” Cooper said. “Organic dye-sensitized solar cells do this by mimicking photosynthesis. If we take a couple different dyes, then we could get a range of absorption spectra, so you could get higher energy conversion rates from the sunlight that’s hitting your dye.”

This topic is new to Cooper, but the research is not. He says that high school is where he first got the opportunity to conduct research and that he asked different professors about opportunities at NC State before his sophomore year. Since then, he has worked with liquid metals in the lab of Michael Dickey.

“I wound up in Dickey’s lab just because of a lot of reviews from his students about being great to work for and being a great person,” Cooper said. “He’s working on stuff that’s pretty applicable and that a lot of the scientific community is interested in.”

According to Cooper, the liquid metals are used for their conductivity and flexibility. There has been a move toward creating soft devices that are similar to human skin both in its resistance to injury and in its ability to sense pressure, and liquid metals work wonderfully in this endeavor.

“A lot of the stuff I do with Dickey is macro-scale,” Cooper said. “When I go to Cambridge, I’m excited to use a lot of those techniques I haven’t used before. I hope that that broadened spectra of different types of research will help me decide what I want to do in the future.”

Cooper has studied sustainable systems in New Zealand and chemical engineering in France, and he recently published a paper in Advanced Functional Materials, a scientific journal. Tiffany Kershner, the director of the Fellowship Advising Office, praised his academic accomplishments.

“[His research] was notable for its independence, his contribution of original insights and approaches, and his ability to learn multiple techniques new to him and optimize them to generate quantitatively useful data for his subsequent modeling,” Kershner said.

She also says his accomplishments are not just limited to academia.

“Chris is a remarkable young man who combines a high level of intellectual achievement with outstanding leadership potential and service to his community,” Kershner said. “Chris has taken advantage of every opportunity available to him during his undergraduate career.”

Cooper is a Park Scholar and a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, and he is in the University Scholars Program. He is in Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, and he is the vice president of outreach for his fraternity Beta Theta Pi. He has been heavily involved with the Krispy Kreme Challenge for the past two years, and he says he enjoys intramural sports.

“Those programs were good opportunities to meet other people,” Cooper said. “I’ll miss the people and the experiences I’ve had.”

Cooper says he is excited to go to the University of Cambridge, though, and that he is not quite sure what excites him the most.

“Definitely living in the UK, because I’ve never been there before,” Cooper said. “And of course, I’m really excited about the research, just to see what the research environment is like over there.”

His research experiences have helped to shape him and to give him some clarity about what he might want to do in the future. When he finishes his program at the University of Cambridge, Cooper says he wants to return to the United States to earn his doctorate in chemical engineering. After that, he wants to become a professor.

“Obviously, Dickey is my research mentor,” Cooper said. “He’s fantastic, and I intend to become a professor. He’s definitely encouraged me to do so. He’s a role model in that sense.”

In 2016, Mia de los Reyes was the first NC State student to win the Churchill Scholarship. Cooper advises any other NC State students seeking the scholarship to start the process during their junior year.