Dr. Catherine Murphy presents Gold Nanocrystals: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Ecology

Catherine J. Murphy

Professor Murphy received two B.S. degrees, one in chemistry and one in biochemistry, from the University of Illinois in 1986. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1990. From 1990-1993, she was first an NSF and then an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. From 1993-2009 Professor Murphy was a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. In August 2009 she joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois.

Her research interest is to fabricate colloidal inorganic nanomaterials of controlled shape and size. In her research, she surface-engineered the nanoparticles for chemical sensing, biological imaging, and control of cell behavior. She is keenly interested in the plasmonic properties of gold nanoparticles, environmental implications of nanotechnology, and sustainability.