Thomas Albrecht-Schönzart

Thomas Albrecht-Schönzart received his undergraduate education in chemistry at Southwest Minnesota State University, during which time he also performed research at Texas A&M with J. P. Fackler on gold chemistry and Ron Caple on organometallic chemistry at the University of Minnesota-Duluth via REU-NSF programs.[1] He received his doctorate in inorganic chemistry in 1997 from Northwestern University under James Ibers where he studied the synthesis, structures, and reactivity of transition metal polychalcogenides. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois in 1998 with J. R. Shapley on metal-fullerene chemistry, he became an assistant professor at Auburn University later that year, transitioning to associate professor in 2002 and full professor in 2007. While at Auburn, he built a large program dedicated to understanding the chemistry and physics of f-block compounds. He opened the first new transuranium laboratory in decades in the U.S. while at Auburn, and continued this theme as the Frank M. Freimann Chair at the University of Notre Dame from 2009 to 2012. He moved to Florida State University in 2012 to become the first Gregory R. Choppin Chair in Chemistry.[1] In 2022 he joined the faculty at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, and was a part of the inaugural group of University Distinguished Professors.

Albrecht-Schönzart directs a research group at the Colorado School of Mines in radio- and nuclear chemistry as well as the chemistry and physics of critical materials. In 2016 he received federal funding from the US Department of Energy through the Office of Basic Energy Sciences as part of the Energy Frontier Research Center program to establish the Center for Actinide Science & Technology (CAST), a multi-institution research center dedicated to advancing our understanding of how electronic structure and bonding control the properties of radioactive materials, with focus on alleviating the environmental impacts of nuclear power and the Cold War.[2][3]

His research focuses on the use of synthetic, crystallographic, and spectroscopic techniques and quantum chemical simulation to better understand the nature of bonding and physical properties in lanthanides and actinides complexes. Albrecht-Schönzart is particularly known for his research on the chemistry of highly radioactive and scarce heavy actinides such as berkelium and californium.[4][5]