Research and Teaching Interests My research is concerned with the mechanism of energy-conversion and storage reactions in chemical and biological systems. The principle approach is to study excitation energy transfer and electron transfer processes using various ultrafast laser spectroscopy techniques. Insight can be gained into the mechanisms of the photosynthetic antenna and reaction center functions; and the knowledge can be applied to the design of molecular devices.
One of the systems studied, in collaboration with Neal Woodbury’s group, is the purple bacteria reaction center, a membrane bound pigment-protein complex which uses light energy to drive an electron across the photosynthetic membrane through a series of ultrafast chemical reactions. This solar energy to electrochemical energy conversion occurs on a picosecond time scale and has efficiency close to 100%.
 The research project, collaborating with Robert Blankenship, Petra Fromme, Andrew Webber and Wim Vermaas, is to understand the excitation energy transfer and charge separation processes in photosystem I and photosystem II from green bacteria and green algae. In those systems, large antenna arrays consisting up to 100 – 200 chlorophylls (or bacterochlorophylls) collect light and deliver the excitation energy to the reaction center, where electron transfer reactions take place, converting solar energy into chemical energy.
The collaboration work with Devens Gust, Thomas Moore and Ana Moore is on the subject of understanding energy and electron transfer in chemically synthesized compounds with mimic the functions of photosynthetic systems to utilize light energy in driving electron transfer reactions. | 
