Samuel's doctoral research focuses on developing first-principles diagrammatic Monte Carlo methods for interacting polaron systems. Polarons form when electrons interact with vibrations of a material’s crystal lattice and can strongly influence its electronic and transport properties. By combining material-specific electronic-structure calculations with advanced Monte Carlo techniques, Samuel aims to study these interactions beyond commonly used approximations.

The project will extend existing methods from single polarons to systems with multiple charge carriers, electron–electron interactions, and spin effects. This will enable the investigation of phenomena such as many-polaron physics, the competition between Coulomb and lattice interactions, and magnetic polarons in real materials. Samuel's research interests include computational condensed-matter physics and stochastic simulation methods.