Analytical Research

The Penn State Department of Chemistry has world class faculty performing research in the field of analytical chemistry. This includes areas of interest ranging from biosensor design and spectroscopy to environmental chemistry, mass spectroscopy and materials analysis. There also has been considerable focus on novel platform designs concerning soft materials, liquid-liquid phase separation and the chemistry of lipid membranes. Part of this strength stems from tremendous facilities in lithography, state of the art electron microscopies, optics, and much more.

Faculty

Ganesh Anand Associate Professor of Chemistry
Protein dynamics in cell signaling.

John Asbury Professor of Chemistry
Ultrafast infrared spectroscopy to reactions in solid-state materials

David Boehr Associate Professor of Chemistry
Biomolecular NMR spectroscopy

Bert Chandler Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry
Metal nanoparticle chemistry, enzymology, and catalysis

Paul Cremer J. Lloyd Huck Professor of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
New analytical platform/method design, small molecule/biomolecule detection, vibrational nonliner optical spectroscopy, and label-free bioanalysis

Miriam Freedman Professor of Chemistry
Methods development for atmospheric chemistry

Danielle Reifsnyder Hickey Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering
Atomic-resolution investigation, transformation, and synthesis of nanomaterials

Christine Keating Professor of Chemistry
Partitioning of solutes in aqueous multiphase systems. Characterization of organic/inorganic hybrid materials.

Kenneth Knappenberger Professor of Chemistry
Single-molecule and single-nanoparticle imaging

Tae-Hee Lee Professor of Chemistry
Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy, biophysical problem-solving and nanoscale engineering based on single-molecule microscopy

Ayusman Sen Verne M. Willaman Professor of Chemistry
Self-powered motors and pumps as sensors

Scott Showalter Professor of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Biomolecular NMR spectroscopy, calorimetry studies of biomolecular systems.

Nicholas Winograd Evan Pugh University Professor of Chemistry
Imaging of biomaterials with mass spectrometry

Ruobo Zhou Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Super-resolution fluorescence imaging, single-molecule detection, spatiotemporal organizations of biomolecules, liquid-liquid phase separation in biology, neurobiology, RNA biology.

Courtesy Faculty

Manuel Llinás Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Malaria parasite metabolism and biochemistry.