Speakers

Professor Paul Weiss
  • Distinguished Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles
  • Distinguished Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles
Paul S. Weiss leads a vast, interdisciplinary research group which includes chemists, physicists, biologists, materials scientists, mathematicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, computer scientists, clinicians, and physician scientists. They focus on the ultimate limits of miniaturization, exploring the atomic-scale chemical, physical, optical, mechanical, and electronic properties of surfaces, interfaces, and supramolecular assemblies. He and his students have developed new techniques to expand the applicability and chemical specificity of scanning probe microscopies. They have applied these and other tools to the study of catalysis, self- and directed assembly, and molecular and nanoscale devices. They advance nanofabrication down to ever smaller scales and greater chemical specificity in order to operate and to test functional molecular assemblies, connecting the biological and chemical worlds. He has written over 300 publications, holds over 30 patents, and has given over 600 invited, plenary, keynote, and named lectures. Among many other services, he is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal ACS NANO. 

For more information about Professor Weiss and his research please visit http://www.nano.ucla.edu/_psw/Weiss.html


Professor Teri Odom
  • Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University
  • Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University
Teri W. Odom is an expert in designing structured nanoscale materials that exhibit extraordinary size and shape-dependent optical properties. Odom has pioneered a suite of multi-scale nanofabrication tools that has resulted in flat optics that can manipulate light at the nanoscale and beat the diffraction limit, plasmon-based nanoscale lasers that exhibit tunable color, and hierarchical substrates that show controlled wetting and super-hydrophobicity. She has also invented a class of biological nanoconstructs that are facilitating unique insight into nanoparticle-cell interactions and that show superior imaging and therapeutic properties because of their gold nanostar shape. She is also serves as the Associate Director of the International Institute of Nanotechnology (IIN) at Northwestern University and as founding Executive Editor of the journal ACS Photonics. For more information about Professor Odom and her research please visit http://www.odomgroup.northwestern.edu/

Professor Nathan Lewis
  • George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology
Nathan S. Lewis has spent the last forty years active in research that harnesses the energy of the sun as solar fuels. He is responsible for training a preeminent cohort of globally leading researchers in the solar fuels field. His work focuses on the discovery of novel semiconductors and the integration of these semiconductors into fully operational devices. Some of these devices have successfully been used as solar-driven water splitting cells. He has published over 500 papers and has presented hundreds of public and technical plenary and invited lectures in the area. He is responsible for training a preeminent cohort of globally leading researchers in the solar fuels field. Along with many other services, he is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

For more information about Professor Lewis and his research please visit http://nsl.caltech.edu/home



Dr. Jennifer Hollingsworth
  • Laboratory Fellow at Los Alamos National Lab
Jennifer A. Hollingsworth is a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Fellow. She joined LANL as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow in 1999, becoming a staff scientist in 2001, and winning a Distinguished Postdoctoral Performance Award in 2002. In 2013, she was awarded a LANL Fellows’ Prize for Research for her discovery and elaboration of non-blinking “giant” quantum dots (gQDs). In her role as staff scientist in the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), a US DOE Nanoscale Science Research Center and User Facility, she endeavors to advance fundamental knowledge of optically active nanomaterials, targeting the elucidation of synthesis-nanostructure-properties correlations toward the rational design of novel functional materials. Her gQD design has been extended to multiple QD and other nanostructure systems, and several are being explored for applications from solid-state lighting and single-photon generation to ultra-stable molecular probes for advanced single-particle tracking and as integral components of multi-functional theranostic agents.

For more information about Dr. Hollingsworth and her research please visit http://www.lanl.gov/expertise/profiles/view/jennifer-hollingsworth


Professor Stuart Rowan
  • Professor of Molecular Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Chicago
Stuart Rowan a Professor of Molecular Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Chicago and has a staff appointment at Argonne National Labs. His research interests focus on the potential of dynamic chemistry (covalent and non-covalent) in the construction and properties of structurally dynamic polymeric materials. His group works on supramolecular polymers, self-healing materials, stimuli-responsive material and nanocomposites, cellulose nanocrystals, metal-containing polymers, gels, biomaterials, and developing new synthetic methods for the construction of complex polymeric architectures. He is a past NSF CAREER awardee, received the Morley Medal (ACS) in 2013, the CWRU Distinguished University Award in 2015, and the Herman Mark Scholar Award (ACS) in 2015. He became an ACS POLY Fellow in 2016 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is also the Deputy Editor of the ACS Macro Letters.

For more information about Professor Rowan and his research please visit https://ime.uchicago.edu/rowan_group/


Professor Jill Millstone
  • Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh
  • Affiliated appointments:
    • Department of Chemical Engineering
    • Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Jill E. Millstone is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh with affiliated appointments in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Before joining the University of Pittsburgh, she completed her Ph. D. at Northwestern University and post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley. Since the Fall of 2011, she has received awards including the NSF CAREER Award, the ACS Unilever Award for Outstanding Young Investigator in Colloid and Surfactant Science and the Cottrell Research Scholar Award. She currently serves as an associate editor at Nanoscale, and on the editorial advisory board of ACS Nano. Her group studies the chemical mechanisms underpinning metal nanoparticle synthesis, surface chemistry, and optoelectronic behaviors.

For more information about Professor Millstone and her research please visit http://www.pitt.edu/~jem210/index.html


Professor Ben Feringa 
  • Jacobus van’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Science
  • KNAW Academy Professor
  • Winner of Nobel Prize Chemistry 2016
Ben L. Feringa obtained his PhD degree at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands under the guidance of Professor Hans Wynberg. After working as a research scientist at Shell in the Netherlands and at the Shell Biosciences Centre in the UK, he was appointed lecturer and in 1988 full professor at the University of Groningen and named the Jacobus H. van’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences in 2004. He was elected Foreign Honory member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is member and vice-president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2008 he was appointed Academy Professor and was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands. Feringa’s research has been recognized with a number of awards including the Koerber European Science Award (2003), the Spinoza Award (2004), the Prelog gold medal (2005), the Norrish Award of the ACS (2007), the Paracelsus medal (2008), the Chirality medal (2009),the RSC Organic Stereochemistry Award (2011), Humboldt Award (2012), the Grand Prix Scientifique Cino del Duca (French Academy 2012), the Marie Curie medal (2013) and the Nagoya Gold Medal (2013). The research interest includes stereochemistry, organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, optopharma, molecular switches and motors, self-assembly and molecular nanosystems.

For more information about Professor Feringa and his research please visit http://www.benferinga.com/


Professor Jeffrey Pyun
  • Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Arizona
Jeffrey Pyun’s research focuses on applying his experience in organic and polymer chemistry for novel materials and nanoscience applications. His group uses a modular, total synthesis approach to create complex nanostructures capable of magnetic self-assembly into micron long wires. He works on understanding the assembly of these colloidal polymers through further functionalization and by mixing them into copolymer type chains. For his work, he has received several honors, such as a NSF career award and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. He has also spent time as an associate professor at Seoul National University as part of the World Class University Program.

For more information about Professor Pyun and his research please visit http://cbc.arizona.edu/research_group/pyun




Professor Christy HaynesHaynes
  • Elmore H. Northey Professor of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota
Christy Haynes is the Elmore H. Northey Professor of Chemistry and Vice-Chair of the Chemistry Department at the University of Minnesota. Prior to her current appointment, she completed a Ph.D. at Northwestern University and performed post-doctoral research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her independent career, she leads a multidisciplinary group which focuses on the interface of biology and nanoscience. She has received many awards such as an NSF CAREER Award, the NIH New Innovator, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and more.  She also serves as an associate editor of the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry.

For more information about Professor Haynes and her research please visit http://www1.chem.umn.edu/groups/haynes/


Professor Suljo Linic
  • Professor of Chemical Engineering; Class of 1938 Faculty Scholar
Suljo Linic is a professor of chemical engineering and the Class of 1938 Faculty Fellow at the University of Michigan. Since 2010, Suljo has also been leading Energy Systems Engineering program at Michigan. Suljo directs a research program focused primarily on heterogeneous catalysis and surface chemistry in areas ranging from selective oxidation, to hydrocarbon reforming, to electrocatalysis and photocatalysis. His research has been recognized through multiple awards including the 2014 ACS Catalysis Lectureship awarded by the journal ACS Catalysis and the ACS Catalysis Division, the 2009 ACS Unilever Award awarded by the Colloid and Surface Chemistry Division of ACS, the 2009 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award awarded by the Dreyfus Foundation, a 2006 NSF CAREER Award, and others. Since 2015, Suljo has served as an associate editor of ACS Catalysis, a multi-disciplinary catalysis journal published by the American Chemical Society.

For more information about Professor Linic and his research please visit http://cheresearch.engin.umich.edu/linic/


Dr. Bruno Schuler 
  • Postdoctoral Scholar at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory


For more information about Dr. Schuler and his research please visit https://profiles.lbl.gov/bruno.schuler