New CBC Faculty Spotlight: Kate Vannoy

Let us welcome our new CBC faculty member, Kate Vannoy!

"I'm a new Assistant Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry here at the University of Arizona. I just moved from the humid, canal-laden Netherlands to arrive here in Tucson. I've bounced around the globe for most of my life (Germany, Saudi Arabia, England, the Netherlands, six U.S. states), but this is my first time in the desert. I'm excited for the new adventure and eager to build a laboratory here.

I'm an electrochemist by training, and I firmly believe the most curious chemistry doesn't happen in the bulk; it happens at an edge. For most electrochemists, the electrode|electrolyte interface is always top of mind. These are the workhorses behind energy storage and conversion, quietly deciding whether a battery lasts or a fuel cell falters. But interfaces are everywhere, and I'm easily distracted. How do enzymes speed up at liquid|liquid boundaries, catalyzing reactions faster than they ever would in a single-phase solution? Can the harsh, high-curvature edge of a bubble be harnessed to drive chemistry that's otherwise stubbornly difficult?

Interfaces are doing sophisticated chemistry all the time, but that chemistry gets missed simply because of how we design our experiments and what our measurement tools are built to see. Our lab plans to fix that mismatch: we design new methods to probe these surfaces clearly, understand what they're doing, and put them to work."