Sebastian was born and raised in a small town in the middle of Transylvania, not too far from the capital of the ancient Dacian kingdom, Sarmisegetuza Regia, and the spellbinding Hunyadi Castle. This part of Romania is best known for, but has nothing to do with, a certain “fictitious” character who needs not see the sun. Still, the area is a land speckled with many old castles, rolling hills, and beautiful mountains. After graduating from high school, Sebastian pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Bucharest. As a student in the Department of Chemistry he performed research in the labs of Prof. Marius Andruh, where he became deeply passionate about coordination chemistry and molecular magnetism. To further his knowledge of magnetism, Sebastian moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where he joined the group of Prof. Eckard Münck at Carnegie Mellon University. Under Eckard and Prof. Emile Bominaar’s mentorship Sebastian became adept at using field-dependent Mössbauer and EPR spectroscopies to unravel the electronic structure of iron-containing species. For his graduate work, Sebastian received the inaugural MCS Guy C. Bery Award. After earning his Ph.D. in chemistry, Sebastian joined Prof. Dan Nocera's group of at MIT, where he pursued his interest in energy-related research. Most recently, Sebastian was awarded the Jack E. Crow postdoctoral fellowship at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) in Tallahassee, Florida. As a MagLab fellow, he collaborated with numerous research groups. In Tallahassee, Sebastian interacted extensively with Prof. Mike Shatruk's group at Florida State University. At the MagLab, Sebastian worked closely with Dr. Andrew Ozarowski, Prof. Stephen Hill, and others, learning high-field EPR. In August 2017 Sebastian moved across the country to Idaho and joined the UI Department of Chemistry as an Assistant Professor. His current research relies on a spectroscopy-guided approach to the discovery of new metal-based, functional materials.