Ioannis D. Spanopoulos, Ph.D is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Florida. He holds a BSc. degree in Chemistry and a MSc. degree in Environmental Chemistry and Technology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In 2015, he acquired his PhD. degree in Materials Chemistry from the University of Crete working on developing Metal-Organic Frameworks for gas storage and separation applications. In 2016, he joined the research group of Prof. Mercouri G. Kanatzidis at Northwestern University as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, focusing on the design and synthesis of environmentally friendly and stable perovskite materials for optoelectronic applications. Dr. Spanopoulos has received multiple awards and honors, including the 2020 IIN Outstanding Researcher Award from the International Institute for Nanotechnology, the 2022 ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Research Award, the 2024 DOE Early Career Research Program (ECRP) Award, the 2024 High Impact Practices (HIPs) Excellence Award, the 2025 Global Excellence in Research Award, and the 2025 Outstanding Research Achievement Award from USF. He was recognized as an Emerging Investigator from the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, a Rising Star from ACS Organic & Inorganic Au, a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM), and a Highly Cited Researcher for the Year 2022. Research at the Spanopoulos Group focuses on implementing molecular and crystal engineering to design and synthesize next-generation, multi-functional materials for medical, energy, and environmental applications. The group recently reported two new families of materials, the Porous Metal Halide Semiconductors (PMHSs) and the crystalline Fullerene-based Metal Halide Semiconductors (FMHSs).