MembersRachel R. Chan

As a materials chemist, I am excited to find new ways to extend chemical synthesis from the molecular and nanoscale size regimes to build functional materials. In the D-Lab, I am learning how to use Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) on optical metasurfaces to decode biomolecular sequence. During my PhD at Northwestern University under the mentorship of Prof. Chad Mirkin, I studied how DNA sequences could be used as a molecular lithographic tool to control the structure, dimensionality, and physical properties of optical metamaterials.

• Chan, R. R.; Landy, K. M.; Gibson, K. J.; Kulkarni, S.P.; Deng, J.; Lee, B.; McCourt, J.; Seifert, S.; Chevalier, O.J.G.L.; Wong, A.M.; Chen, C.; Winegar, P.W.; Aydin, K.; Mirkin, C. A. Programming Defects and Cavities into Colloidal Crystals Engineered with DNA. Adv. Mater., 2025, e03522.
• Chan, R.R.*; Pietryga, J.*; Landy, K.M.; Gibson, K.J.; Mirkin, C.A. Microcrystal Growth Pathways Investigated with Machine Learning Segmentation and Classification in Scanning Electron Microscopy. ACS Nano. 2024, 18 (48), 33073–33080.
• Pathak, A.K.; Kulkarni, S.P.; Chan, R.R.; Mirkin, C.A.; Aydin, K.; Krishnaswamy, S. Surface-Functionalization of Oleate-Capped Nano-Emitters for Stable Dispersion in 3D-Printable Polymers. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2024, 2412064.
• Landy, K.M.; Gibson, K.J.; Chan, R.R.; Pietryga, J.; Weigand, S.; Mirkin, C.A. Programming Nucleation and Growth in Colloidal Crystals Using DNA. ACS Nano. 2023, 17, 6480–6487.
• Cestellos-Blanco, S.; Chan, R.R.; Shen, Y.; Kim, J.; Tacken, T.A.; Yu, S.; Soundararajan, M.; Seefeldt, L.C.; Yang, P. Photosynthetic Biohybrid Coculture for Tandem and Tunable CO2 and N2 Fixation. PNAS. 2022, 119.