Catherine J. Murphy, Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry, and Head, Department of Chemistry, has been named one of the world’s best 1,000 female scientists by Research.com.
Murphy is ranked #927 globally and #556 in the United States.
Murphy is widely recognized for her groundbreaking development of the "seed-mediated growth" method to synthesize shape-controlled gold nanorods in aqueous solutions. Before her breakthrough in 2001, reliably controlling the size and shape of tiny metal nanoparticles was a major hurdle in materials science. The Murphy lab developed a wet-chemical, "seed-mediated" approach. By utilizing tiny gold "seeds" and growing them out in a controlled chemical environment, her laboratory managed to synthesize gold nanorods with precisely tailored aspect ratios (length-to-width dimensions). This discovery paved the way for the scalable and environmentally sustainable commercial production of gold nanorods. By manipulating the size of gold and silver nanorods, the Murphy Lab has also demonstrated how to fine-tune the wavelength of light that these precious metals particles absorb and scatter, which has led to many biological and medical applications, including photothermal therapy, cellular imaging and chemical sensing, and targeted drug delivery.
Murphy's research totals nearly 381 publications and 85,881 individual citations spanning her 33-year career. Murphy is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Murphy has received numerous awards, including the 2022 Centenary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the 2020 ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry, and the Linus Pauling Medal among others.
According to Research.com, their world rankings are based on “bibliometric data collected from leading scholarly databases, including OpenAlex and CrossRef, supplemented by multiple other reputable sources. These platforms provide comprehensive and up-to-date metadata on scientific publications, citations, and author profiles, enabling a robust and multidimensional evaluation of research impact.”
Murphy is one of two Illinois scientists in the 2026 edition of Research.com’s rankings for best female scientist, the other is Benita Katzenellenbogen, Swanlund Professor of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology.