My research is broadly focused on designing nanoparticle-based materials for optical properties. Nanoparticles are appealing as they can minimize light loss and enhance optical absorption when used in energy applications such as photovoltaic cells. Their smaller size and large specific surface area allow them to enhance energy conversion and storage. We use computational simulations, inverse design, and optimization to achieve a desired optical property and learn about the compositional and positional properties of the material in the process. More specifically, we use a mutual polarization method, to calculate polarization effects from external field. I hope to study electric field incident-angle independent materials and different optimization routines during my time in CEI.