Archieved News

 

Apr 2024:

  • The group celebrated Udit and Paul’s winning of graduate awards!!

  • Peng is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. See academy’s announcement and Cornell’s news press.
  • Congrats to Paul on being selected as one of the winners of 2024 Howard Neal Wachter Memorial Prize, which honors our Department’s best third and fourth year physical chemistry students.
  • Congratulations to Udit on being selected as one of the winners of the 2024 Tunis Wentink Prize, our department’s highest graduate student award!
  • Youngchan and Peng raced in the 10K of the 41th Skunk Cabbage Classic 10K & HM!

  • We welcome Dr. Shasha Guo joining us as a new postdoc. Shasha did her PhD in Materials Science & Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

January 2024:

November 2023:

October 2023:

September 2023:

  • The group concludes the summer with a hiking together at Tremen State Park, ending at Purity Ice Cream.


August 2023:

  • Wenyao’s paper, in collaboration with Christine, appeared online on Scientific Reports.
  • Congratulations to Wenyao on the acceptance by Scientific Reports of the paper “Mechanical stimuli activate gene expression via a cell envelope stress sensing pathway” Christine and she collaborated on and co-1st-authored!
  • Congratulations to Ningmu Zou, a former PhD student in the group, on accepting an Associate Professor position at Nanjing University, China. He also won a Distinguished Overseas Young Talent grant.
  • We welcome Prof. Je Hyun Bae and her students Jinju Kim and Hyunju Yang from Chungnam National University, Korea, visiting our lab.
  • Congratulations to Youngchan for winning a Best Poster Award at GRC Chemical Imaging!

July 2023:

June 2023:

  • The group bid farewell to Bing, who concludes a successful postdoc career to become an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong.

  • Congratulations to Rocky, Xiangcheng, and Xianwen! Their co-1st authored paper on optical sequencing of single polymers is accepted in principle by Nature Chemistry!
  • We welcome Tochi Ezidiegwu joining us for summer undergraduate research, as part of the CHAMPS summer research program.
  • We welcome Hazuki Takahashi joining us for summer undergraduate research as part of Cornell’s NEXUS scholar program.

May 2023:

  • Commencement day for Wenyao & Udit!

  • The group bid farewell with a lunch together to Wenyao and Wenjie. Wenjie is moving to an exciting independent academic position in China – stay tuned for the final decision later!

  • Congratulations to Wenyao on her successful defense of her PhD thesis! Wenyao will be joining Walter Reed Army Research Institute in the DC area to do vaccine development research.
  • Congratulations to Dr. Mahdi Hesari, a former postdoc in the lab, who is moving onto a tenure-track faculty position at SUNY Oswego!
  • We welcome Dr. Kaijie Ma joining the lab as a new postdoc. Kaijie did his PhD at Tsinghua University, China, followed by postdoc training at University of Tokyo, Japan.

April 2023:

  • Congratulations to Bing and Xianwen! Their co-1st authored paper on studying microbe-semiconductor biohybrids is accepted in principle by Nature Chemistry!
  • Congratulations to Paul Padgett on winning a 2023 TA award that recognizes his outstanding performance as a teaching assistant in the department. Congratulations!
  • Former graduate student, Dr. Lauren Genova, now assistant professor at University of Delaware, wins Excellence in Teaching Award at UD. Congratulations!
  • The group bid farewell with a lunch together to Muwen Yang, who is moving to an exciting position with L.E.K. consulting in Boston!

January 2023:

  • Congratulations to Ming Zhao on his officially accepting an assistant professor position in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore!

November 2022:

  • We bid farewell to Ming Zhao, who is moving to a tenure-track faculty position in Hong Kong or Singapore — he is still not decided among his great choices!

  • Congratulations to Kushal Sengupta, a former postdoc in the group, on his appointment as a group leader in the Department of Inorganic Spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Germany.

October 2022:

  • We bid farewell, with a group lunch, to Rocky, who moves to University of Michigan for a new position.

June 2022:

  • Group celebrated the summer with a picnic at Myers Park. Those with venturous spirit went for a paintball fight afterward.

  • Susil and Chunming’s paper appeared onling on ACS Cent. Sci.: “Tuning single-polymer growth via hydrogen bonding in conformational entanglements“.
  • Congrats to Susil and Chunming on the acceptance of their paper by ACS Central Science. They discovered a novel phenomenon of how the interplay between inter- and intra-molecular forces modulates nonequilibirium conformational entanglements and thus polymerization kinetics of single polymers.
  • The group bid farewell, with a lunch together, to Dr. Susil Baral, who moves onto an assistant professor position at Illinois State University. Best wishes to his future independent career!

March 2022:

  • Felix wins a NRSA Postdoctoral fellowship from NIH. Congratulations!

February 2022:

  • Susil Baral, a postdoc in the group, accepts a tenure-track assistant professor position at Illinois State University. Susil will start his new position this summer. Congratulations!
  • Former postdoc Justin Sambur, now on the faculty at Colorado State University, wins a presitigous Sloan Fellowship.

January 2022:

December 2021:

  • Xianwen’s paper on interfacet junction effects on photoelectrodes appeared on-line on Christmas Eve!
  • Group celeberates the coming of holidays with a lunch together.

November 2021:

  • We bid farewell to Xianwen Mao, who moves to National University of Singapore to start his independent career as a Presidential Young Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

October 2021:


  • Surprise pumpkin carving work from the group!

  • Congratulations to Xianwen on the acceptance of his work on inter-facet junction effects on photoelectrocatalysts by Nature Materials!
  • We welcome Zhaohong Wang and Paul Padgett as our newest graduate students! Zhaohong did his undergrad at Shanghai JiaoTong University, China and was a summer REU in our group previously. Paul did his undergraduate at SUNY Geneseo.
  • We welcome Dr. Muwen Yang to join the group as a postdoc. Muwen did her PhD in Chemistry at Northwestern University, jointly advised by the late Prof. Richard van Duyne, Prof. George Schatz, and Prof. Emily Weiss.

September 2021:

  • We bid farewell to Dr. Feifan Wang, after his visiting us for a couple of months. Feifan moves to ETH Zurich for a new postdoc position.

August 2021:

  • The group celebrates the end of summer with a picnic at Taughannock State Park, frisbee games, music, hike/trek through the waters to the Taughannock Falls, and canoeing in the lake! Thanks to Felix for organizing it and to all for fun spirits.


  • Nature Reviews Materials highlights Rocky and Ming’s work on nanoscale mapping of cooperative adsorption. See article: “The many facets of cooperativity.”
  • Former postdoc Xiangcheng Sun starts his tenure-track assistant professorship in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. Congrats!

July 2021:

June 2021:

May 2021:

  • Congratulations to Susil on the acceptance of his paper on conjugated polymers by Chem! Using single-molecule magnetic tweezers measurements, Susil uncovered unusual polymerization kinetics and mechanical properties of single polyacetylene chains, a prototypical conjugated polymer.
  • Congratulations to Xianwen on accepting an assistant professor position at National University of Singapore!

April 2021:

  • Xianwen and Rocky’s invited review on “Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy for characterizations of heterogeneous catalysts” is accepted by Springer Handbook of Advanced Catalyst Characterization. Congratulations!

February 2021:

  • Chunming and Susil’s review on real-time growth studies of single polymers appears online in Trends in Chemistry! See the paper here.
  • Tianlei made a video about our research group – check it out here.
  • A theory paper from the group of Prof. Jaeyoung Sung, a collaborator at Chung-Ang University, Korea, is accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett. Congratulations, Prof. Sung! This theory provides a generalizable framework in understanding the mechanisms of complex catalytic processes on single particles with multiple active sites, a research area our group pioneered and made many experimental advances. We are glad to be able to contribute to this paper.

January 2021:

  • Chunming and Susil’s invited review on the state-of-art advances toward monitoring single-polymer growth in real time at single-monomer resolution accepted by Trends in Chemistry! Congratulations.

October 2020:

  • We welcome 1st year graduate student Tianlei Yan joining us for PhD research. Tianlei did his BS in Chemistry at UW Madison.

September 2020:

  • Congratulations to Xianwen on being named a finalist of Blavatnik Regional Award for Young Scientists! He is recognized for “the development of a groundbreaking imaging technique that allows for the visualization of various classes of non-fluorescent systems.” See Blavatnik awardee profile at here and Cornell news feature here.

August 2020:

  • The group celebrates the summer and tackles the pandemic restrictions with a picnic/BBQ at Stewart park. Check out the yoga skills of Chen lab members in the above group picture and their culinary skills in the pictures below. Thanks to Felix for organizing and to all for making this gathering fun and safe!

June 2020:

  • Congratulations to Lauren on winning the Excellence in Leadership award. See award announcement.
  • We welcome Dr. Wenjie Li joining us as a postdoc! Wenjie did his PhD with Prof. Song Jin at University of Wisconsin at Madison.

May 2020:

April 2020:

  • Congratulations to Bing, Kushal, and Lauren on the acceptance by PNAS of their paper on imaging CusRS function in live cells!
  • Congratulations to Lauren on being offered a Visiting Assistant Professor position at University of Delaware, her alma mater!
  • See Ming’s invited perspective on a recent study in Nano Letters regarding single-molecule kinetics of single-particle catalysis that builds on our group’s work: “Exploring plasmonic photocatalysis via single-molecule reaction imaging.”

March 2020:

  • Won’s work on Zur has been recommended in F1000Prime and rated “exceptional.” See recommendation here.
  • Won’s paper on biphasic unbinding of Zur from DNA in cells featured on the cover of Nucleic Acids Research:


February 2020:

  • Congratulations to Xianwen on winning an MRS Postdoctoral Award. This award recognizes postdoctoral scholars who are showing exceptional promise that may include, for example, excellence in scientific research, leadership, advocacy, outreach, or teaching, during their postdoc assignment. Xianwen was chosen from a large group of nominees. For developing fabrication strategies and operando imaging techniques for nanoscale electrochemical materials systems important for environmental and energy applications.

January 2020:

  • We welcome Dr. Felix Alfonso joining the group as a postdoc. Felix did his PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University with Prof. Bianxiao Cui.
  • Congratulations to Won on the acceptance of his work on Zur in cells by Nucleic Acids Research, and its selection as a “breakthrough” paper! Won discovered and elucidated the mechanism of a first-of-its-kind, “impeded-followed-by-facilitated,” biphasic protein unbinding kinetics from DNA with increasing protein concentration in cells.

December 2019:

November 2019:

October 2019:

  • Congratulations to Lauren on the acceptance of her paper by PNAS! This is a collaborative work with the Hernandez’s group on the mechanical effects on the dynamic assembly of a metal efflux complex in bacteria.
  • New graduate student Zhiheng Zhao joins the group.
  • CornellResearch features our on-going efforts in studying unusual gene regulation mechanisms in bacteria. See story.

September 2019:

August 2019:

  • We welcome Heting Pu joining the group. Heting did her BS at UCLA and will do research in our group as part of her MS training.

July 2019:

June 2019:

  • We welcome Zhaohong Wang, an undergrad summer intern, joining the group from Shanghai JiaoTong University in China.
  • We welcome Diego Garzon, an undergrad summer intern, joining the group from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

May 2019:

  • Xianwen’s work in developing COMPEITS, a technique to image nonfluorescent reactions at super-optical resolution, is accepted by Nature Chemistry. Congratulations!
  • Peng is appointed the Young Star Editor of Nano Research, an international journal on nanoscience and nanotechnology, co-published by Tsinghua University Press and Springer.

  • Chen lab moves to the new space on the 7th floor of ST Olin!

  • Peng will deliver the 2019/2020 Brian Bent Lecture at Columbia Chemistry.
  • Cornell Chronicle story features Peng: “Chemistry professor finalist for Chemical Pioneer Awards.”

April 2019:

  • Congratulations to Lauren on winning a P.E.O. Scholar Award! P.E.O. is committed to its educational mission of helping women support their various educational goals through loans, grants and scholarships.

March 2019:

  • Another piece of work of former postdoc and now assistant professor at CSU, Justin Sambur, accepted by J. Electrochem. Soc. on correlated reaction and photoelectrochemical current imaging of nanoscale photoanodes in water splitting.
  • Postdoc Rocky wins the 2019 Victor K. LeMar Award for his graduate research at UC Berkeley, presented by the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. Congratulations!

February 2019:

  • Congratulations to Chunming on officially accepting an Assistant Professor position in Polymer Science at University of Akron!
  • Peng is selected for an 2019 Chemical Pioneer Award. Established in 1966, it is awarded by the American Institute of Chemists to recognize chemists or chemical engineers who have made outstanding contributions to advances in chemistry or the chemical profession. Peng is recognized for his pioneering contributions to the study of catalysis on single nanoparticles.

January 2019:

  • Peng is appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (JBIC).
  • Cornell Chronicle features Mahdi’s work: “A first: Cornell researchers quantify photocurrent loss in particle interface.”
  • Congratulations to Lauren on winning a NIH F31 NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship!
  • Rocky and Xianwen’s Perspective on the analogy between enzyme and nanoparticle catalysis accepted by ACS Catalysis.
  • Mahdi’s benchmark work in defining the photocurrent loss from a single particle-particle interface in nanostructured photoelectrodes accepted by Nano Letters.

December 2018:

  • Group holiday party celebrating the end of 2018:

November 2018:

  • Peng is elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), for distinguished contributions to the field of single-molecule microscopy, particularly for pioneering its development and application in studying catalysis and bioinorganic metal homeostasis.
  • Presidential Postdoc Fellows, including Rocky, meet the President Pollack of Cornell:

September 2018:

  • Peng is selected for the 2018 Bau Family Award in Inorganic Chemistry. Established in 2008 by the late Prof. Robert Bau, an international figure known for his pioneering studies on the chemistry of transition-metal hydride complexes, this biennial award is given to a young inorganic chemist under the age of 45 in recognition of his/her outstanding achievements.

June 2018:

  • Former PhD student Hao Shen officially accepts an assistant professorship at Kent State University. Congratulations!
  • Mahdi and Xianwen’s perspective on JACS spotlights: “Photo(electro)catalysts, ready for their extreme close-up.”
  • Congratulations to Ningmu on his paper in ACS Nano on quantitative imaging of catalytic hotspots in single plasmonic nanostructures, using correlated super-resolution catalysis imaging and electron microscopy imaging!

May 2018:

  • Nature Chemistry News & View article features our work: “Communicating catalysts.”
  • Mahdi and Xianwen’s invited Perpective on single-particle photo(electro)catalysts for solar energy conversion accepted by JACS.
  • Rocky, as one of the first Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellows, is featured on Cornell Research. See story “Catalysis – Focusing in to see the action.”

April 2018:

  • Tai-Yen’s review article and Ace’s art are featured on the cover of Acc. Chem. Res.!
  • Peng is selected as the 2018-2019 Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecturer by Stanford Chemistry.

March 2018:

February 2018:

January 2018:

  • Congratulations to Tai-Yen on the acceptance of his review article by Acc. Chem. Res. This article reviews an emerging new paradigm of protein-DNA interactions, in which proteins show concentration-enhanced unbinding from DNA via ternary complexes that are enabled by multivalent protein-DNA contacts.

December 2017:

  • Congratulations to Rong (Rocky) Ye, an incoming postdoc, on winning a prestigious Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship! Rocky will join the group in spring 2018 after completing his PhD at Berkerley with Prof. Gabor Somorjai.
  • C&EN selects our single-polymer growth work as a “Research of the Year” for 2017!

November 2017:

October 2017:

September 2017:

  • Congratulations to Chunming on the acceptance of his paper by Science on tracking living polymerizations of single polymers in real time! His study represents our first endeavor into single-molecule polymerization catalysis!
  • Ningmu passed his B-exam and moved to a Senior Product Engineer position at AMD.

August 2017:

  • We welcome Prof. Cheong-soo Hwang from Dankook University, Korea, who will spend some time with us as a visiting scientist.

July 2017:

  • We welcome Dr. Susil Baral from Ohio University, joining as a new postdoc!
  • We bid farewell to Guanqun Chen, who defended his thesis and moved to a Process Engineer position at Intel.
  • Congratulations to Danya Smart, a former graduate student and currently a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, on winning a NIH postdoctoral fellowship and giving birth to another baby, Edra Jane Martell Smart!

June 2017:

May 2017:

  • Congratulations to Ace and Tai-Yen, on the acceptance of their paper by PNAS on the dynamic assembly mechanism of the multicomponent efflux pump CusCBA.
  • We bid farewell to Ace, who moves to a postdoc position at Harvard Medical School.

March 2017:

  • Kaori defended her thesis and moved to a research scientist position at Toyota Motor Company in Japan. Farewell to Kaori.

September 2016:

  • We welcome Dr. Xianwen Mao from MIT ChemE to join us as a new postdoc!
  • Congratulations to Chunming on the arrival of his baby son Jayden! The 8th in a 3-year period of high “productivity” of the Chen group.

August 2016:

June 2016:

  • Congratulations to Lauren on being selected to receive a Chemical Biology Interface traineeship!
  • The group bid farewell to Tai-Yen Chen, Justin Sambur, and Feng Yang.
  • We weclome Prof. Tao Ye, Associate Professor at UC Merced, in joining us for a sabbatical visit.

April 2016:

  • Congratulations to Won on winning a Howard Neal Wachter Memorial Prize! Well deserved. Good work, Won!
  • Congratulations to Ningmu on the arrival of his baby son Ethan! Seven babies in less than three years for the Chen Lab! 

March 2016:

  • Congratulations to Tai-Yen  on officially accepting a tenure-track assistant professor position at University of Houston!
  • Tai-Yen’s second child, son Evan, arrived yesterday. Congratulations!
  • Peng is selected as the recipient of 2016 Excellence in Catalysis Award from the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York.
  • Congratulations to Feng and Ace for successfully defending their theses!
  • Cornell Dialy Sun features Justin’s work on TiO2 photoanodes. See article: “A
    ‘Hole’ New World: Improving the Efficiency of Water Splitting    .”

February 2016:

January 2016:

  • Group ski retreat at Greek Peak moutain resort! See pictures.

December 2015:

  • Justin’s paper on single-molecule photoelectrocatalysis is accepted by Nature. Congratulations!

November 2015:

  • We welcome Chandra Joshi back to the group as a research associate.
  • Faculty of 1000 Prime recommends the Danya’s PNAS paper. See the recommendation
    here     and the original paper here.

October 2015:

  • Danny was a winner of 2015 NSF Graduate Fellowship, a prestigious award for supporting US’s most promising graduate students. Congratulations!
  • Chemical & Engineering News highlights Danya’s discovery of biased kinetic sampling mechanism by CueR in regulating transcription. See news article “Understanding Of Bacterial Protein’s Defense Strategy Could Lead To Antibiotics“, and her paper in PNAS.
  • We welcome Lauren and Danny in offically joining our research group!

September 2015:

  • Congratulations to Danya on the acceptance of her paper by PNAS, in which she discovered a biased kinetic sampling mechanism by metalloregulators in controlling transcription.

August 2015:

  • We welcome Dr. Xiangcheng Sun, from Chemical Engineering of Univ of Connecticut, joining us as a postdoc.
  • Congratulations to Dr. Guokun Liu, a former postdoc, in becoming an Associate Professor in the College of Environment and Ecology at Xiamen University, China.
  • We welcome Dr. Xiaohui Wang, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Nanjing Tech University, China, joining us as a Visiting Scientist.

July 2015:

May 2015:

  • Danya successfully defended her thesis. Congratulations!
  • Congratulations to Tai-Yen and Ace on the acceptance of their paper by Nature Communications:”Concentration and chromosome-organization dependent regulator unbinding from DNA for transcription regulation in living cells.”! It is a “heroic” effort, quoting one of the reviewers.
  • Ace wins Simon Bauer Scholarship Award. Congratulations!
  • The group bid farewell to Lukasz Krzeminski with a lunch at Mehak Cuisine.

Feburary 2015:

  • Former PhD student Aaron accepts a faculty position at William Jewell College. Congratulations to Aaron.

2014

  • July 2014:
    • Lukasz’s baby son Adam arrives. Congratulations. Four babies a row in the lab – what a productive year
  • June 2014:
    • We welcome Erin Nissen to the group for a summer REU.
  • May 2014:
    • Peng is named a finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards. See annoucement. 
    • Hao and Eric successfully defended their theses. Congratulations.
  • April 2014:
    • Congratulations to Danya on winning the Bauer Scholarship Award.
  • March 2014:
  • February 2014:
    • Danya’s baby son Phoenix arrives, weighing 9 lbs and 13 oz and measuring 21 3/4 inches! Congratulations to Danya. It’s been a highly productive year; three babies in a row!
    • Peng won the ACS PHYS Division Early-Career Award in Experimental Physical Chemistry.

2013

  • November 2013:

    • Justin’s baby son Max arrives. Congratulations. Two babies in a row in the group. 
    • Tai-Yen’s daughter Eira is born. Congratulations.
    • Justin’s comprehensive review on “Approaches to single-nanoparticle catalysis” has been accepted by Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 
    • Peng was selected as the 2014 Coblentz awardee. See annoucement.
  • June 2013:
    • We bid farewell to Chandra, who concludes his successful career in the group and moves to a Research Scientist position at Duke.
    • We welcome Elayne Thomas from Univ of Michigan to join us for summer REU.
    • Chemical & Engineering News highlight our recent studies in using single-molecule image to screen the activity of a large number of catalyst particles. See article.
  • May 2013:
  • Peng is named the Peter J. W. Debye Professor of Chemistry, effective July 1, 2013.
  • Congratulations to Xiaochun – his paper on massively scalable parallel screening of single catalyst particles has been accepted by ACS Catalysis.
  • April 2013:
    • Congratulations to Danya, who just won the Howard Neal Wachter Memorial Prize for 2012/2013. This prizes honors 3rd or 4th students in physical chemistry, broadly defined.
  • February 2013:
  • Farewell to Xiaochun, who concludes his highly successful career in the group and moves to a Full Professor position at Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.  We wish him continued success in his independent career.
  • Peng is officially promoted to Full Professor, effective Jan 1, 2013.
  • January 2013:
    • Congratulations to Nesha – her paper in mapping the 2D spatial activity pattern on single nanoplates has been accepted by JACS. 

2012

  • November 2012:

    • The group welcomes Won Jung as our newest graduate student.
  • October 2012:
    • The group welcomes Dr. Lukasz Krzeminski from University of Leeds of UK as a new postdoc.

  • August 2012:

    • Congratulations to Chandra, Debashis, and Danya on the acceptance of their paper by PNAS. This paper describes their discovery of novel pathways for the metalloregulator CueR to turn off transcription.
  • July 2012:
    • Eric wins a silver medal at the Dryden Lake triathlon, which includes kayaking, biking, and running.
  • June 2012:
    • Congratulations to both Xiaochun Zhou, a current postdoc, and Weilin Xu,  a former postdoc, on winning the Young QianRen from the Chinese government. The Young QianRen is a government award that provides generous research and personal supports to attract talented young researchers back to China to establish their independent careers.
  • May 2012:
    • The group enjoyed a farewell lunch with Aaron, who is moving to a postdoc position at Los Alamos National Lab, and Kyu-Sung, who is moving to a senior research engineer position at the Korean Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology (KICET).
    • Aaron’s big research article on dynamic multi-body protein interactions of copper chaperones has been accepted by JACS!

  • April 2012:

    • Aaron successfully defended his Ph.D. Congratulations to Dr. Aaron Keller!
    • Eric and Peng partcipated in the Skunk Cabbage Classic run – Eric in half-marathon, Peng in 10K. Congratulations to Eric, finishing 1:18:56, being the #1 in his age group and #5 overall!  Peng, finishing 51:18, #(a big number here) in (any catogory) group. 

  • March 2012:

  • February  2012:
  • January 2011:

    • Kyu-Sung and Guokun’s paper on single Pt nanoparticle catalysis just appeared on Nano Letters! See link.

    • Nesha concludes her successful career in the group and moves to Harvard Medical School for postdoc. We wish her continued success.
    • Former postdoc Weilin Xu moves to a professor position in Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

2011

  • December  2011:

    • We welcome first-year graduate students Ningmu Zou, Kaori Kubo, and Guanqun Chen join the group!

  • August 2011:

    • Justin is awarded a highly competitive and prestigious NSF postdoc fellowship. Congratulations, Justin!

  • July 2011:

    • We welcome Justin Sambur from Colorado State Univ to join us as a new postdoc!

  • June 2011:

    • Congratulations to Danya for being selected for a Chemistry and Biology Interfaces traineeship!

    • Guokun concludes his research in our group and moves to NIST. We wish him well in his continued success!

    • ACS PRF awards a new grant to support our single-molecule electrocatalysis research on carbon nanostructures.

    • Peng is officially promoted to Associate Professor with indefinite tenure, effective July 1.

  • May 2011:

    • Rupa Sarkar concludes her postdoc position in the group. We wish her well in her new position at NYU.

  • March 2011:

    • Peng Chen receives a Distinguished Junior Faculty Award from the Chinese-American Chemistry & Chemical Biology Professors Association (CAPA).

  • January 2011:

    • We welcome Tai-Yen Chen into our group as a new postdoc!

2010

  • November 2010:

    • Debashis concludes his postdoc research in the group and will move to Waseda University in Japan for another postdoc. We wish him well in his future pursuits.

    • We welcome Danya J. Martell Smart into our group for graduate research!

    • The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology recommends Peng for promotion to the rank of associate professor with tenure.

  • August 2010:

    • We welcome undergraduate Kimberly Yeh to join our lab for research.

    • Our review article “Single-molecule fluorescence imaging of nanocatalytic processes” has been accepted by Chem. Soc. Rev. It will appear in a thematic issue on “Understanding the Chemistry of Active Sites in Heterogeneous Catalysis – Lessons from In-Situ Spectroscopy Studies”. 

    • Farewell to Jaime Benitez, who starts a postdoc position at A&EP at Cornell, and to Hahn Chong, who concludes his summer research in our group.

    • Farewell to Alec White, who concludes his summer research experience in the group.

    • Congratulations to Eric on being selected for a CCMR IGERT fellowship.

  • July 2010:

    • Congratulations to Aaron for winning the Chemistry poster award at the Graduate Association of Chemistry poster session.

    • 2nd Ph.D. from the group – Congratulations to Dr. Nesha May Andoy!

    • DOE awards a new grant to support our research in chemical imaging of single particle catalysis.

    • We welcome Dr. Chandra Joshi from Free University of Berlin, Feng Yang from Nanjing University, and Ace Santiago from University of the Philippines to join us!

  • June 2010:

  • We welcome Hahn Chong to join us for summer REU.

  • May 2010:

    • First PhD from the group – Congratulations to Dr. Jaime Benitez!

    • We welcome Alec White from Whitman College to join us for summer research.

    • Our group’s single-molecule bioinorganic chemistry research featured on the cover of Natural Product Reports! This is a themed issue on “Metals in Cells”.

  • April 2010:

    • Weilin Meng receives the Hill Fellowship for undergraduate summer research. Congratulations, Weilin!

    • Nesha wins Tunis Wentink Prize for outstanding academic and research performance. Congratulations, Nesha!

    • Jaime and Aaron’s research article on metallochaperone dynamics has been accepted by Faraday Discussions.

  • February 2010:

    • Our invited Perspective article on single-molecule nanoscale electrocatalysis has been accepted by Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

  • January 2010:

    • Our invited review on our single-molecule studies of metal regulation and transport accepted by Nat. Prod. Rep. It will appear in the themed issue of Metal Trafficking.

2009

  • December 2009:

    • Weilin’s review article on single-nanoparticle catalytic kinetics featured on the cover of Nano Research.

    • Weilin’s single-molecule electrocatalysis of carbon nanotubes featured on the cover of Nano Letters.

          

  • November 2009:

    • Congratulations to Xiaochun on the acceptance of his paper by J. Am. Chem. Soc.! This paper describes a single-particle, single-molecule study of size-dependent catalysis of Au-nanoparticles.

    • We welcome Eric Choudhary joining our group for graduate research. Welcome, Eric!

  • October 2009:

    • Jaime’s article on using nanovesicle trapping to study weak protein interactions accepted by Methods in Enzymology.

    • Weilin’s brief review article on single-particle kinetics accepted by Nano Research.

    • Dr. Rupa Sarkar from  Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science joins as a postdoc. Welcome!

  • September 2009:

    • We welcome Dr. Kyu-Sung Han from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

  • August 2009:

    • We welcome Weilin Meng to join our group for undergrad research.

    • Peng selected as 2010 Paul Saltman Awardee.

    • Aaron wins Poster Award at Gordon Research Conference on Cell Biology of Metals. Congratulations to Aaron!

    • Nesha’s paper on CueR-HJ study is featured on the cover of Biophysical Journal.

  • July 2009:

    • NSF Division of Engineering awards a grant to support our nanocatalysis research.

  • May 2009:

    • Undergrads Montwaun and Matt join the group for summer research. Welcome!

    • Nesha’s paper on CueR-HJ interactions accepted by Biophys. J.!

  • Apr 2009:

  • Feb 2009:

    • Our FRONTIERS article on single-nanoparticle catalysis featured on the cover of Chem. Phys. Lett.

  • Chemistry World features Weilin’s paper about single nanoparticle catalysis in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. See “Single nanocatalyst behavior revealed” by Nina Notman.

  • Peng Chen selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.

  • Jan 2009:

    • Our FRONTIERS article on single-turnover study of nanocatalysis accepted by Chem. Phys. Lett.

    • Weilin’s study in quantifying nanoparticle activity heterogeneity accepted by Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

    • 2008

    • Dec 2008: Nanocatalysis paper selected by Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology, 2008, 18(23) [Link] and Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research, 2008, 16(11) [link].
    • Nov 2008:
      • Weilin’s paper on single-molecule kinetic theory of heterogeneous and enzyme catalysis accepted by J. Phys. Chem. C.
      • Weilin’s work on single nanoparticle catalysis appeared in Nature Materials on-line on Nov 9! Find out how we can watch and interrogate a single gold nanoparticle catalyst in action in real time here.
    • October, 2008
      • Guokun Liu joins as a postdoc.
    • 08/22/2008: NIH-NIGMS awards a R01 grant to fund our single-molecule bioinorganic research!
    • 06/07/2008: New student Hao Shen joins the lab. Welcome!
    • 06/03/2008: Welcome Rita Medina from University of Puerto Rico joining us for summer REU!
    • 05/14/2008: New grant awarded by the Cornell Center for Materials Research for a collaborative research with Profs. Roger Loring and Abe Stroock on the catalytic dynamics of single nanoparticles.
    • 04/11/2008: New grant awarded from ACS Petroleum Research Foundation to support our nanoparticle catalysis research.
    • 03/13/2008: Dr. Xiaochun Zhou joined us as a postdoc today!
    • 02/05/2008: Our copper chaperone work appeared on JACS asap online.
    • 01/25/2008: Jaime and Aaron’s paper on probing transient chaperone protein interactions with nanovesicle trapping has been accepted by JACS!
    • 01/21/2008: We welcome Aleksandr Kalininskiy joins us as a undergrad researcher!
    • 01/18/2008: Feng Gao, from U Penn, just joined us today. Welcome!
    • 01/16/2008: We welcome Debashis to our group, who has joined us today!

    2007

    • 12/18/2007: Farewell to Susanta, who has completed a successful postdoctoral research in our group. Susanta will  venture into a new direction in single-molecule research at NIH. We wish him the best for his future pursuit. To carry on our ever-increasing research activities, two new postdoctoral researchers will join us in January 2008.
    • 12/05/2007: New grant from Wilson Disease Association to support our single-molecule studies of the Wilson Disease Protein.
    • 12/03/2007: Jaime and Aaron have submitted their work on probing transient interactions between the copper chaperone Hah1 and Wilson Disease protein. Congratulations!
    • 11/27/2007: Congratulations to Aaron, who has been selected for a Molecular Biophysics Traineeship!
    • 09/20/2007: Susanta and Nesha’s paper on PbrR691-engineered HJ interaction has appeared in JACS ASAP!
    • 09/18/2007: Weilin and Jason have submitted their work on single nanoparticle catalysis at single-turnover resolution. Congratulations!
    • 09/15/2007: We’re working on another new version of the website. Please bear with us as everything slowly gets replaced from our old version to the new version.
    • 08/2007: Peng and Nesha’s review on single-molecule fluorescence studies of bioinorganic systems has been accepted by Inorg. Chim. Acta.!
    • 08/2007: Susanta and Nesha’s paper on probing metalloregulator-DNA interactions using engineered Holliday junctions has been accepted by J. Am. Chem. Soc. Congratulations!
    • 06/2007: Peng and Nesha submitted a short review discussing single-molecule fluorescence studies and possible further applications related to bioinorganic chemistry.
    • 05/2007: Jaime was selected again for a NIH Molecular Biophysics Traineeship.
    • 03/2007: Susanta and Nesha submitted their work of engineering DNA Holliday junctions as general single-molecule reporters to probe protein-DNA interactions. They applied this novel method to study how a MerR-family metalloregulator interacts with DNA for transcriptional regulation.
    • 02/2007: In recognition of our innovative and significant research in Single-Molecule Bioinorganic Chemistry, Peng Chen was awarded a 2007 NSF Career Award. Congratulations to Peng! Congratulations to Nesha and Jaime, who have made significant contributions to the work described in the winning proposal.
    • 01/2007: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! As a wonderful gift of the year, Weilin Xu joins our research group! Welcome!

    2006

    • 09/2006: Aaron Keller pledges allegiance in our group! Welcome!
    • 08/2006: Jason Kong becomes another happy member of our lab. Welcome!
    • 07/2006: Dr. Susanta Sarkar joins us as a postdoctoral fellow from University of Oregon. Welcome!
    • 06/2006: Jaime Benitez was selected to receive a Molecular Biophysics Training Grant. Congratulations to Jaime’s good work!
    • 06/2006: Undergrad Eric Yeh joins us for summer research. Welcome to the group!
    • 03/2006: Derek Klarin wins Hughes Undergraduate Scholarship. Congratulations!
    • 01/2006: First year TPCB student Nick Harbison joins us for rotation for spring 2006. Welcome!
    • 01/2006: Cornell undergraduate Derek Klarin and Steve Hohwald join the lab. Welcome!

    2005

    • 12/2005: New graduate students Nesha May Andoy and and Qi Wang join the lab. Welcome!
    • 08/2005: Peng Chen wins a Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award! Yay!
    • 07/2005: Lab was born.