Dr. Rech is originally from Northwest Indiana and would go to college just over the border in Illinois as Lewis University. As an undergraduate, I was not interested in chemistry, instead was a theology major thinking about a future in either religion or history. When I learned what research was, I fell in love with chemistry, especially my first type of research projects which focused on designing water filters. I was very lucky and got to work in Dr. Jason Keleher’s Research Group for nearly 4 years. This experience transformed my career path.

I wanted to continue my education and moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for my Ph.D., working in Dr. Wei You’s Lab. My focus in graduate school was to design low cost, semi-transparent, and high efficiency polymers for use in organic photovoltaics (solar cells). Integrating this into practice, I  collaborated on projects which incorporated these semi-transparent solar panels with greenhouses to help boost crop (like tomatoes and lettuce) yield and create an off the grid greenhouse, where the solar panel provides the electricity load for heating, cooling, and hydroponics. In a similar theme through the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program, I moved to Stanford University in Prof. Zhenan Bao’s Lab to design conjugated polymers which can dynamically tune the absorption of specific wavelengths of light outside the visible light range. An example of this application can be with smart windows which control the amount of heat which enters your house and drastically cut your heating and cooling costs without interfering with the transparent nature of your windows. My research success led to being honored by Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list for best young scientists in the country.

Since my undergraduate experience with research, I knew that I wanted to be a professor at a primarily undergraduate institution. Along with teaching, I wanted to offer the same types of research experiences to students which made me fall in love with chemistry. The University of North Carolina at Asheville was a perfect place for that, and why I joined as a faculty member in 2023.

Funding

SHIFT (Student High Impact Focused Time) Award – $47k

Startup Funds from UNC Asheville Dean’s Fund – $95k