Maytal Caspary Toroker is an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.[1] She is recognized for her significant contributions in the field of computational materials science, particularly in its applications to catalysis, charge transport, and energy conversion devices.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Early life and education
Maytal was born in Israel in a Jewish family. She completed her BA degree in molecular biochemistry (2004) from the Department of Chemistry at Technion.[1] Later, she pursued her direct Ph.D. (2009) from the same department.[10]
Research and career
Prof. Maytal Caspary Toroker at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (2023)
After receiving her Ph.D., she started working with Prof. Emily A. Carter at Princeton University[11] during the period of 2010–13, funded by the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship from the European Union. In 2013, she joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, as an assistant professor, and she is currently working as an associate professor.
Her research at Technion mainly involves development of density functional theory (DFT) and its application. She has extensively worked on developing a method for charge transport calculation through heterostructures using wave propagation method.[12][13][8] Her research on doped NiOOH (Nickel oxy-hydroxide) has explained the reason for the material's remarkable success in the oxygen evolution reaction. Her results show that it is the iron's ability to change its oxidation state that facilitates oxygen evolution.[14][15] This work was published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and was featured on the front cover of Issue 11, 2017.[15] She has also conducted research on transition metal oxides for their applications as photocatalysts and photoelectrodes.[16][17][18] She developed a method to calculate the band edge positions using first principles quantum mechanics calculations.[9] These band edge positions play a crucial role in determining the suitability of these materials for various applications. Apart from this, she also works on metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) for their application in photocatalysis and electrocatalysis.[3][2][19][20][21][22]
Currently she is the chair of European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) action on Computational materials sciences for efficient water splitting with nanocrystals from abundant elements[23]. She is in the editorial advisory board of the journal Advanced Theory and Simulation, Wiley[24]
