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Jennifer S. Holt |
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Contact Information: Phone: 814-898-6004 Email: jsh18@psu.edu Office: 36 Hammermill
School of Science 4205 College Dr. Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Erie, PA 16563
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Background: B.S.- Miami University, Oxford, OH 1992-1996 Ph.D. - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 1996-2002 Postdoctoral - Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 2002-2004 |
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Philosophy on Chemistry: I am a physical chemist by training, which means that I enjoy asking the why questions. Why does a reaction occur spontaneously? Why do molecules interact to form a particular complex? Why does a solid absorb light?
My goal in chemistry is to try and help students answer these questions for themselves and to develop the tools necessary to understand more than just the how to do chemistry, but also the why we do what we do. This begins in General Chemistry by developing the language of chemistry and then continues in Physical Chemistry with the details of the concepts. Hopefully, by the time students graduate they can ask and begin to answer the why questions for themselves.
My research interests also follow the why questions as they relate to host-guest materials. A host-guest composite material is one where a guest molecule is inserted into a host material in order to develop new properties in the composite material. The guest I am interested in is an organic dye molecule, Brookers merocyanine, and how it inserts itself into a variety of host materials with different dimensionality, chemical composition and structural characteristics. I am interested in using a variety of optical spectroscopic techniques to study these systems and understand the underlying physical behavior (energetics, kinetics, mechanisms, equilibria) of the host-guest formation. For more information, please come talk with me or follow the link on the left. |
