Nanoparticle structure, nanoparticle chemistry, novel nanoparticle synthesis strategies, applications of nanoparticles to biological imaging.

Polymer Science, Sustainable Chemistry, and Homogeneous Catalysis: Intrinsically recyclable & bio-derived sustainable polymers; chemical synthesis of biodegradable microbial plastics; precision (living and stereoselective & chemoselective) polymer synthesis; Lewis pair polymerization methodology for compounded sequence control; metal-catalyzed coordination polymerization for chiral polymers; organocatalysis for biomass conversion to fuels, chemicals & materials.

Chemical catalysis, nanoparticle research, energy research and kinetics and mechanism

Develop computational catalyst design and apply computational tools to both enzymatic and catalytic conversion processes of sustainable chemicals and polymers from plants (biomass) for a new bio-energy infrastructure. Mechanism-driven discovery of biopolymer upgrading and material design via molecular and quantum mechanics. Machine learning approach in catalyst design, and (bio)fuel and chemical property prediction tool kit development.

New materials and methodologies involving solid-state and solution-phase reactions, particularly those involving kinetic control. We study structure/property relationships of materials (e.g., magnetism, electrical transport) using advanced synchrotron X-ray and time-of-flight neutron scattering and spectroscopic methods.

Electrochemical synthesis of inorganic bulk and nanoscale materials, low-temperature solid-state chemistry, nanomaterials.

Multidisciplinary chemical design and fabrication of biomimetic materials for use in medical device applications. Research work includes: synthesis of organic and inorganic compounds including small-molecule therapeutics, polymers, and extended frameworks; analytical studies utilizing fluorescence, chemiluminesence, zeta potential, and LC/MS-TOF; fabrication and engineering of materials; biomedical efficacy and toxicity studies.

The Sambur group synthesizes nanomaterials and develops imaging techniques to correlate chemical and structural properties with function/performance.

My research interests are primarily in physical inorganic chemistry, harnessing synthetic inorganic/coordination chemistries and advanced magnetic resonance spectroscopies to enable the next generation of bioimaging, quantum information science, and reactivity applications.