Research focuses on quantum dynamics and excited-state reactivity in biological and synthetic light-harvesting systems. Discovered long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes (FMO, 2007). Develops 2D electronic spectroscopy techniques to probe excitonic transport, open quantum systems, and photochemical reaction dynamics on femtosecond timescales. Director NSF QuBBE; co-director Berggren Center for Quantum Biology and Medicine.
Primary focus: immune engineering for vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. Quantum sensing relevance: co-authored 2025 fluorescent-protein spin qubit paper (Physics World Top-10) with Maurer and Awschalom, contributing protein engineering expertise to develop biological alternatives to NV centers. Collaborates on quantum biosensors for real-time monitoring of immune cell activity (Chan Zuckerberg Biohub). Primarily a collaboration gateway for NV biosensing rather than standalone quantum sensing PI.
Develops quantum sensing platforms at the biology interface. Core NV-center work: (1) widefield NV magnetic imaging of action potentials in neurons and cardiac tissue; (2) NV-based single-molecule NMR at 14 T resolving molecular structure with single-molecule sensitivity; (3) charge-sensitive shallow NV nanoprobes monitoring real-time cellular electrophysiology; (4) biocompatible diamond surface functionalization enabling multiplexed DNA microarray biosensing; (5) fluorescent-protein spin qubits as biological alternatives to diamond NV (2025 paper, Physics World Top-10 Breakthrough). Runs full NV stack: hot implantation, widefield and confocal ODMR, T1/T2/Hahn echo/DEER/Rabi, automated fitting pipelines. 2026 Sloan Fellow. PhD Lukin/Harvard; postdoc Chu/Stanford. Argonne joint appointment.
Research centers on manipulating and measuring single molecules with quantum-level precision. Primary platform: ABEL trap (Anti-Brownian ELectrokinetic trap) for single-molecule confinement in free solution without surface tethering, enabling measurement of spectroscopic identity, molecular dynamics, and nanoscale energy transfer at femtomolar concentrations. Also develops orientation-resolved single-molecule imaging and single-molecule FRET for photoadaptation in photosynthetic systems and nanoscale immune cell signaling. QuBBE member. PhD Physics UChicago; joined 2024.