Christy F. Landes

About

Christy F. Landes earned a B.S. in chemistry from George Mason University in 1998, and her Ph.D. was awarded from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2003 under the direction of Mostafa El-Sayed. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Oregon and the University of Texas at Austin, she began her independent career at the University of Houston in 2006. In 2009 she moved to Rice University, where she rose through the ranks to become the Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Chair of Chemistry. In 2023, she joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests encompass physical, analytical, and materials chemistry, with a focus on predictive separations, spectro-electrochemistry, protein dynamics at interfaces, imaging and signal processing, and single-molecule spectroscopy. Her experimental physical chemistry research aims to understand complex structure-function relationships in biological processes and to inspire innovation in materials design, emphasizing minimal cost, maximum efficiency, and optimized longevity. Her work explores how biological systems often utilize redundant or degenerate channels that outperform synthetic counterparts, providing insights into nature’s molecular-scale engineering strategies. She develops new methods to increase information content in low signal-to-noise single-molecule data, characterizing biological examples of heterogeneous structure-function relationships and identifying similar relationships in synthetic…

Research topics

• Materials science
• Optoelectronics
• Nanotechnology
• Physics
• Optics
• Chemistry
• Artificial Intelligence
• Molecular physics
• Computer Science
• Acoustics

Selected publications

• The role of the plasmon in interfacial charge transfer

  Science Advances · 2024-07-05 · 71 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  The lack of a detailed mechanistic understanding for plasmon-mediated charge transfer at metal-semiconductor interfaces severely limits the design of efficient photovoltaic and photocatalytic devices. A major remaining question is the relative contribution from indirect transfer of hot electrons generated by plasmon decay in the metal to the semiconductor compared to direct metal-to-semiconductor interfacial charge transfer. Here, we demonstrate an overall electron transfer efficiency of 44 ± 3%…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Plasmonic pathway to hybrid nanomaterials through energy transfer

  Science Advances · 2025-10-10 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Plasmon-induced resonance energy transfer (PIRET) is a promising approach for plasmonic photocatalysis and energy conversion, but challenges include elucidating the mechanism and maximizing its efficiency, both of which are hampered by competing processes. Another challenge is demonstrating that PIRET can photoinitiate reactions that follow efficient pathways compared to bulk processes. We report a plasmon-induced route to plasmonic-polymer hybrid nanomaterials using in operando single-particle…

  PublisherDOI

• Machine Learning to Adaptively Predict Gold Nanorod Sizes on Different Substrates

  The Journal of Physical Chemistry C · 2025-03-18 · 4 citations

  article

  Correlating a nanoparticle’s morphology with its optical properties is essential and is achieved by a combination of electron microscopy and optical spectroscopy. Machine learning has gained attention for enhancing in situ measurements and enabling inverse nanoparticle design. However, new training data for each specific condition are often required when testing data differ from training data. We propose a method to adapt existing training data for predicting the size of gold nanorods (AuNRs) on…

  PublisherDOI

• On-Chip Lock-In Detection for Ultrafast Spectroscopy of Single Particles

  The Journal of Physical Chemistry C · 2024-05-16 · 4 citations

  article

  Time-resolved spectroscopy of plasmonic nanoparticles is a vital technique for probing their ultrafast electron dynamics and subsequent acoustic and photothermal properties. Traditionally, these experiments are performed with spectrally broad probe beams on the ensemble level to achieve high signal amplitudes. However, the relaxation dynamics of plasmonic nanoparticles is highly dependent on their size, shape, and crystallinity. As such, the inherent heterogeneity of most nanoparticle samples ca…

  PublisherDOI

• Mie Magnetic Structural Colors from Short Chains of TiO₂ Nanospheres

  Nano Letters · 2024-09-23 · 3 citations

  article

  We demonstrate distinctive structural colors within a small footprint by using a short chain of nanospheres. Rather than using high-index materials like Si (n ∼ 4), which ensure strong modal confinement, TiO2 is employed. TiO2 has an intermediate index (n ∼ 2), promoting stronger modal coupling between the magnetic dipoles of each particle. This approach enables selective engineering of the magnetic response and yields larger spectral changes compared to that of Si. Despite the lower refractive…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F32GM073534

  NIH · $68k · 2006

• CCI Phase I: NSF Center for Adapting Flaws into Features

  NSF · $1.8M · 2021–2024

• CAREER: Transport in Supported Polyelectrolyte Membranes

  NSF · $623k · 2011–2016

Frequent coauthors

• Stephan Link

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  74 shared

• Helen Foster

  Newcastle University

  63 shared

• Claudia May

  27 shared

• T. Rapley

  Birmingham Children's Hospital

  27 shared

• Wei‐Shun Chang

  University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

  22 shared

• Lydia Kisley

  Case Western Reserve University

  20 shared

• Richard C. Willson

  University of Houston

  19 shared

• M. W. Beresford

  University College London

  18 shared

Awards & honors

• Distinguished Alumnus, George Mason University College of Sc…
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science…
• Langmuir Lectureship, ACS Division of Colloids and Surfaces…
• Kinosita Award in Single Molecule Biophysics, Biophysical So…
• Fellow, American Chemical Society (2022)

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Catherine J. Murphyh-112
• Eric Oldfieldh-100
• Scott E. Denmarkh-99