Physical Chemistry at Illinois offers a broad range of research opportunities at the interface of chemistry, physics, and the allied disciplines of materials science and biology. Graduate students interested in physical chemistry can work with any Faculty Research Advisor in the Department of Chemistry and are encouraged to visit the graduate program website listed to the right of this page.
| PROFESSOR | INTERESTS |
|---|---|
| Dana D. Dlott | ultrafast infrared spectroscopy; protein dynamics; laser shock waves and laser ablation in biology |
| Robert B. Gennis | structure and function of membrane proteins; mechanism of proton pumping by respiratory oxygen reductases; enzymology; bioenergetics |
| Steve Granick | in vivo and in vitro biophysics; complex fluids; single molecules, particles, and advanced imaging |
| Martin Gruebele | dynamics of complex chemical systems studied by laser spectroscopy and computational theory; current projects include fast protein folding and control of energy flow in highly excited organic molecules |
| * Taekjip Ha | uses sophisticated physical techniques to manipulate and visualize the movements of single molecules to understand basic biological processes involving DNA and other molecules |
| Sharon Hammes-Schiffer | electron, proton, and proton-coupled electron transfer reactions in solution, proteins, and electrochemistry; hybrid quantum-classical molecular dynamics; non-Born-Oppenheimer electronic structure methods; nonadiabatic dynamics of photoinduced processes; molecular electrocatalysts; enzyme and ribozyme mechanisms. |
| So Hirata | electronic and vibrational many-body theory for molecules, polymers, and solids; computer algebra for quantum chemistry |
| Prashant K. Jain | nanoplasmonics and nano-optics; near-field manipulation of photophysics and photochemistry; super-resolution imaging of active sites in heterogeneous catalysis; imaging phase transformations in single nanodomains, artificial photosynthesis |
| Deborah E. Leckband | nanomechanics of biomolecules; cell adhesion; biomaterials; tissue engineering |
| Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten | statistical methods of protein folding - thermodynamics and kinetics; design of optimized energy functions for protein structure prediction; structural genomics of metabolic pathways. |
| Nancy Makri | theoretical quantum dynamics of large molecules and condensed phase systems, with applications to relaxation, charge transfer reactions, and quantum control of nanostructures |
| Benjamin J. McCall | astrochemistry; the study of molecular structure and intramolecular dynamics using high-resolution spectroscopy |
| Eric Oldfield | drug discovery targeting infectious diseases and cancer; synthesis; spectroscopy; computational chemistry |
| Chad M. Rienstra | solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR) instrumentation and pulse sequence methodology; protein structure and conformational dynamics; applications to membrane proteins |
| Renske M. van der Veen | ultrafast electron microscopy; ultrafast X-ray science; laser spectroscopy and microscopy; excited-state structural dynamics; photoswitching, photocatalytic and photovoltaic materials |
| Josh Vura-Weis | Femtosecond x-ray spectroscopy of transition metal catalysts, spin crossover materials, and photovoltaics |
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Other Faculty with Interests in Physical Chemistry:
| Andrew A. Gewirth | Gregory S. Girolami |
| Yi Lu | Catherine J. Murphy |
| Ralph G. Nuzzo | Jonathan V. Sweedler |
| Kenneth S. Suslick | Joaquín Rodríguez-López |
| Alison R. Fout |
* denotes departmental affiliate
