Tell us about where you work.  What do you do there, and who do you work with?

I work at the Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

What are your primary areas of research?  What do you aim to achieve in these areas?

Photosynthesis research. We use various low-temperature laser-based spectroscopies to study excitation energy transfer (EET) and electron transfer (ET) processes in complex biological systems.

What contributions have you made to these areas so far?  What is the broader importance of your contributions?

Our research provided better insight into the electronic/excitonic structure of many photosynthetic reaction centers and various antenna pigment complexes. Our high-resolution techniques provide selective probes for low-energy states—which are of most interest from an energy transfer perspective—in addition to insight into the excitonic interactions between high and low energy states. Better understanding of the natural photosynthesis will allow constructing more efficient artificial photosynthetic systems for future photovoltaic devices.

What directions do you expect your research in these areas to take in the future?

We are developing better theoretical models to describe various optical spectra, with emphasis on transient and persistent hole-burned (HB) spectra obtained for complex biological systems. The HB spectra have to be described with the explicit consideration of EET and excitonic interactions.

What do you consider to be the most important recent developments in your areas of research?

X-ray structures of many complex photosynthetic systems and 2-D electronic spectroscopy that have considerable impact on the photosynthesis field.

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