Biography

Daniel received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology under the direction of Prof. J. L. Beauchamp, where he studied the gas-phase chemistry of radical ions and developed a new ion source for field-induced droplet ionization mass spectrometry. Following his Ph.D., he pursued an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gerard Meijer and Prof. Dr. Gert von Helden. There, he applied infrared action spectroscopy to characterize the structure and properties of ions cooled to 0.4 K in helium nanodroplets. Dr. Thomas was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rhode Island in the fall of 2020. His research program leverages the selectivity and control afforded under vacuum conditions to study chemical structure and reactivity using custom mass spectrometry instrumentation and infrared action spectroscopy. His research group applies this approach to investigate topics that span chemistry research areas, including biomolecular structure and dynamics, structural motifs in deep eutectic solvents, and chemical reaction mechanisms.