I was born in Germany and received my degree in organic chemistry from Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel in 2008. After that, I stayed in Kiel and began my PhD work in the group of Prof. Rainer Herges on spin state switching to isolated molecules at room temperature establishing the Light-Driven Coordination Induced Spin State Switching (LD-CISSS). After I defended my Ph.D. thesis in June 2012, I received a DAAD fellowship to join Prof. Bazan's research group for my postdoctoral studies.

Current Research

My research is focused in the field of organic photovoltaics and new organic semiconductors. The development and synthesis of new promising molecules will be performed. I will also theoretically study the influence of substituents to the parent system and try to understand the relationship between molecular design and high-performance in bulk heterojunction solar cells. This may open the door for a variety of more efficient solar cells.

Steffen left UCSB on August 15, 2013 to return to Germany.