Dr. Elizabeth Ferguson serves as an Army Senior Science Technical Manager and is the Lead Technical Director (TD) for the Army Installations and Operational Environment (IOE) Business Area at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in the Environmental Laboratory, Vicksburg, Mississippi.  As Lead IOE TD, Elizabeth is responsible for programmatic direction of the research areas of military Infrastructure (the built environment) and well as the natural environment in both installations and operational environments.   

Elizabeth joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1999 as an ecological and human health risk assessor for the Environmental Engineering Branch of the Louisville District, Louisville, Kentucky.  While working in Louisville, she led several large-scale, field-based ecological risk assessments for CERCLA-based cleanup activities.  In this role, Elizabeth participated in many regulatory and stakeholder workgroups addressing ecological risk assessment methods and analysis. She has been a part of many risk management technical support teams. 

Elizabeth joined the Environmental Laboratory of ERDC in 2004, as the chief of the Environmental Processes Division, Risk Assessment Branch where she led laboratory-based research and development activities in risk assessment.  In 2005 she joined the Office of Technical Directors as the Associate Technical Director with the role of the management, funding and technical direction of military-relevant environmental research at ERDC.  Starting in 2010, she assumed leadership of the Military Materials in the Environment area of the Environmental Quality and Installations RDA as Technical Director until 2016 when she was promoted to SSTM and Lead Technical Director of IOE. Elizabeth obtained her bachelor's degrees in chemistry and psychology (1991), master's degree in radio-analytical chemistry (1994), and Ph.D. (1998) in fish physiology and aquatic toxicology from the University of Kentucky.  She has authored several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and has presented at numerous conferences and symposia.

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This lecture series commemorates the life and legacy of Professor Susan Odom, an energetic, productive, and driven faculty member in the Department of Chemistry from 2011 to 2021. It features speakers noted for outstanding research in Professor Odom’s fields of synthetic and materials chemistry.

Visit this page for more information on the Susan A. Odom lecture series.

Details to come closer to event.

This lecture series commemorates the life and legacy of Professor Susan Odom, an energetic, productive, and driven faculty member in the Department of Chemistry from 2011 to 2021. It features speakers noted for outstanding research in Professor Odom’s fields of synthetic and materials chemistry.

Visit this page for more information on the Susan A. Odom lecture series.

Abstract: The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is the primary research and development organization for the United States Department of the Air Force. Our team is developing new materials and manufacturing approaches to enable the next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices that are critical for national security. Technologies such as integrated photonics, photodetectors, optically activated switches, and electro-optic modulators demand materials with electrical and optical properties that can be precisely tuned. One promising strategy is to combine organic and inorganic components in hybrid material systems, where carefully engineered interfaces can yield properties that are not possible in either component alone.

In this presentation, I will highlight three material platforms under development in the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at AFRL where these hybrid interfaces play a central role: transition metal dichalcogenides for optical scattering, MXenes for electromagnetic interference shielding, and organic metal halide perovskites for detecting and generating polarized light. In each case, advances in synthesis, processing, and nanoscale to microscale characterization of the organic/inorganic interfaces are key to achieving the desired performance.

Bio: Dr. Joshua Kennedy received his B.Sc. in Physics from the College of Charleston and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Utah. Before joining the Air Force Research Laboratory in 2014, he worked at the University of Texas at Dallas and at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He is now a Senior Research Physicist at AFRL, where he leads the Agile Electronic Materials and Processes Research Team in the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Abstract: The Periodic Table is a cornerstone of chemistry, but its validity is challenged by the extreme properties of superheavy elements (SHEs, Z ≥ 104) and actinides (Z > 88). Relativistic effects, stemming from their large nuclear masses, significantly alter their chemical behaviors, potentially limiting the predictive power of the Periodic Table. Recent breakthroughs have provided insights into the chemistry of these elements, including the direct identification of molecular species formed by actinium (Ac, Z = 89) and nobelium (No, Z = 102) ions.

Using a cutting-edge, atom-at-a-time technique at the 88-Inch Cyclotron Facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we have synthesized and characterized molecular species produced by these ions in reactions with H2O and N2. Our findings underscore the importance of direct identification in SHE chemistry experiments and offer new perspectives on the chemical properties of these enigmatic elements.

This presentation will explore the current state of superheavy element chemistry research, highlighting recent advances and future directions for unraveling the mysteries of SHE chemistry. By pushing the boundaries of our understanding, we aim to shed light on the chemical behaviors of these extraordinary elements and challenge our current understanding of the Periodic Table.

Bio: Jennifer Pore leads an innovative gas phase chemistry program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she investigates the fundamental properties of superheavy elements, examining them one atom at a time. A San Francisco native, she earned her Bachelor of Science at Mills College, a women's college in Oakland, CA. She then moved to Canada to complete her Master’s and Ph.D. in nuclear science before returning to California and joining the Lawrence Berkeley team. Her primary research interest focuses on probing the chemical properties of superheavy elements to explore whether the periodic table should be reorganized. Jennifer has recently received a DOE Early Career Award to further investigate the chemistry of superheavy elements.

Abstract: Sensors and actuators are fundamental building blocks of next-generation human-machine interfaces. This talk presents our recent efforts to establish closed-loop, bidirectional communication and feedback within living systems, with an emphasis on the chemical dimension. The first part of the talk introduces a novel class of flexible, miniaturized probes inspired by biofuel cells for monitoring synaptic release of glutamate in the central nervous system. The resulting sensors can detect real-time changes in glutamate within the biologically relevant concentration range. These advances could aid in basic neuroscience studies and translational engineering, as the sensors provide a diagnostic tool for neurological disorders. The second part of the talk presents our recent work on a bio-integrated gustatory interface, “e-Taste,” which addresses the underrepresented chemical dimension in current VR/AR technologies. This system facilitates remote perception and replication of taste sensations through the coupling of physically separated sensors and actuators with wireless communication modules. Together, these efforts aim to advance the co-design of systems capable of capturing signals and providing feedback, addressing the relatively underexplored chemical aspect in many fields.

Bio: Jinghua Li received her B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from Shandong University, China, in 2011. She earned her Ph.D. from Duke University, United States, in chemistry in 2016. She spent 2016–2019 as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University before joining the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University as an assistant professor in 2019. Her two focus areas are: 1) fundamental understandings on synthesis chemistry and interfacial properties of thin-film materials as bio-interfaces; and 2) engineering efforts on application of these materials for the next generation wearable/implantable biomedical devices to bridge the gap between rigid machine and soft biology. Her faculty position is funded, in part, by the Discovery Themes Initiative in the area of Chronic Brain Injury, which has promoted faculty hires and support of critical materials needs in the areas of imaging, diagnosis, and treatment of brain injury. Dr. Li supports the Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence, Nanotech West, and the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis with her expertise in the function of biomaterials. Dr. Li has been recognized as the 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 2024 ACS Materials Au Rising Star, 2024 Nanoscale Emerging Investigator, and 2023 OSU Early Career Innovator of the Year. She also received the DARPA Young Faculty Award, NIH Trailblazer Award, OSU Lumley Research Award and OSU Chronic Brain Injury Program Paper of the Year Award.

Abstract: Synthetic DNA nanotechnology facilitates the design and fabrication of nanoscale particles and devices with diverse applications. Leveraging a growing toolkit of DNA self-assembly methods, it is possible to construct both two- and three-dimensional structures ranging from nanometer to micron scales. The unique biophysical and biochemical properties of DNA—combined with its compatibility with various organic and inorganic nanoparticles and its predictable base-pairing rules—have made it an ideal material for single-molecule studies, photonics, plasmonics, synthetic biology, and healthcare applications. In this work, we present our efforts in developing DNA-based platforms to precisely organize inorganic and organic nanoparticles and biosensors. We investigate how these DNA scaffolds can control the positioning and orientation of nanoparticles to enhance their photophysical properties. Additionally, we explore the behavior of DNA nanostructures when introduced into mammalian cell cytosol, a critical step toward creating biocompatible delivery systems for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Finally, we will discuss our recent efforts in building gene-encoded DNA nanoparticles, a promising advancement in the development of targeted delivery systems.

Website: https://www.mathurnanolab.com/

Abstract: Molecular characterization of Atmospheric Organic Aerosol (OA) using advanced methods of high-resolution mass spectrometry provides essential insights into the composition, properties, and behavior of chemical constituents, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of its environmental impacts. These studies have enabled the identification and quantification of specific components of OA, including light-absorbing chromophores, such as phenolic, quinone and nitroaromatic compounds, N-heteroatom compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. Through comprehensive understanding the chemical composition of OA, we can now assess its sources and atmospheric transformations. Recent investigations have also broadened their scope to explore the partitioning of OA species between the particle and gas phases. These measurements yield valuable data on particle-to-gas transition enthalpies and apparent volatilities of individual OA species, crucial for constructing volatility basis sets (VBS). The resulting VBS distributions enable an assessment of equilibrium gas-particle partitioning across various atmospheric conditions of organic mass loadings, temperatures, and pressures relevant to Earth’s atmosphere. Furthermore, novel parameterization models leverage chemical characterization and volatility datasets to evaluate the viscoelastic properties of OA. This comprehensive molecular understanding of OA chemistry is essential for predicting their ability to undergo chemical reactions, partition between gas and particle phases, and impact atmospheric environment and related processes, such as radiative forcing of climate and cloud formation. This presentation will provide an overview of recent advancements in this field and outline future directions for continued research. 

Bio: Professor Alexander Laskin is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He received his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute, Russia, and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Laskin’s group advances aerosol and multiphase environmental chemistry with discoveries that reframe sources, composition, and climate/health impacts. 

He is actively involved in the scientific community, serving as a Co-editor of the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal since 2013, and as a member of the Editorial Board for Aerosol Science and Technology and Scientific Reports. His honors include the NASA Honor Award (FIREX-AQ Group Achievement) in 2019 and being named a W.R. Willey Research Fellow of the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at PNNL in 2018.

Abstract: Molecular characterization of Atmospheric Organic Aerosol (OA) using advanced methods of high-resolution mass spectrometry provides essential insights into the composition, properties, and behavior of chemical constituents, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of its environmental impacts. These studies have enabled the identification and quantification of specific components of OA, including light-absorbing chromophores, such as phenolic, quinone and nitroaromatic compounds, N-heteroatom compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. Through comprehensive understanding the chemical composition of OA, we can now assess its sources and atmospheric transformations. Recent investigations have also broadened their scope to explore the partitioning of OA species between the particle and gas phases. These measurements yield valuable data on particle-to-gas transition enthalpies and apparent volatilities of individual OA species, crucial for constructing volatility basis sets (VBS). The resulting VBS distributions enable an assessment of equilibrium gas-particle partitioning across various atmospheric conditions of organic mass loadings, temperatures, and pressures relevant to Earth’s atmosphere. Furthermore, novel parameterization models leverage chemical characterization and volatility datasets to evaluate the viscoelastic properties of OA. This comprehensive molecular understanding of OA chemistry is essential for predicting their ability to undergo chemical reactions, partition between gas and particle phases, and impact atmospheric environment and related processes, such as radiative forcing of climate and cloud formation. This presentation will provide an overview of recent advancements in this field and outline future directions for continued research. 

Bio: Professor Alexander Laskin is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He received his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute, Russia, and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Laskin’s group advances aerosol and multiphase environmental chemistry with discoveries that reframe sources, composition, and climate/health impacts. 

He is actively involved in the scientific community, serving as a Co-editor of the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal since 2013, and as a member of the Editorial Board for Aerosol Science and Technology and Scientific Reports. His honors include the NASA Honor Award (FIREX-AQ Group Achievement) in 2019 and being named a W.R. Willey Research Fellow of the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at PNNL in 2018.

Organic semiconductors (OSC) are of interest for a wide range of flexible optoelectronics applications, including transistors, solar cells, and sensors, to name a few. Despite their promise, the design and optimization of OSC pose significant challenges due to the complexity of the structures of the molecular building blocks, varied packing configurations of these building blocks in the solid state, which impacts the optical and electronic response, and sensitivity of the solid-state packing to material processing conditions. Accurately predicting the solid-state properties of OSC traditionally requires high-level quantum mechanical methods. These methods, however, can be computationally demanding, particularly for large molecules or when there is interest in extensive material screenings. Overcoming this computational bottleneck is essential to enabling the efficient design of OSC, which would reduce the experimental trial-and-error approach used in material discovery. Moreso, the holy grail of computational study is to be able to accurately and efficiently predict the molecular packing configurations and associated properties of OSC. This dissertation aims to address some of these challenges by developing computational approaches that leverage machine learning (ML) models to accelerate the study of OSC. ML promises to facilitate faster material screening and optimization by offering an alternative to direct quantum mechanical calculations. Specifically, this dissertation describes the development of ML models for intermolecular interactions, including noncovalent interactions (NCI) and electronic couplings (EC). Conventional quantum mechanical methods used to investigate OSC are introduced, and ML approaches are reviewed. The dissertation then discusses the generation of large, high-quality datasets for NCI from symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT), and the development of ML models to efficiently predict NCI. An active learning approach for the high-throughput derivation of optimal training sets for NCI predictions is then developed, and the training set is used to train new ML models. Finally, ML models to predict EC from three-dimensional (3D) molecular dimer geometries are implemented for the rapid, on-the-fly prediction of ECs across thermally sampled conformations obtained through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to enable rapid materials characterization during simulation. Ultimately, this dissertation presents a framework that integrates ML with quantum mechanical insights, offering a scalable solution to accelerate OSC discovery and optimization.

KEYWORDS: Organic Semiconductors (OSC), Density Functional Theory (DFT), Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory (SAPT), Noncovalent Interactions (NCI), Electronic Couplings (EC), Machine Learning (ML).