My graduate research efforts focus on developing two types of luminescent sensors. The first is designed to differentiate silver ions in water from silver nanoparticles, and the second is to develop high sensitivity CO2 sensors. These research efforts can potentially be used for environmental monitoring and in industrial applications.

My primary PhD research encompasses sensing the release of silver ions from silver nanoparticles. Silver nanoparticles have a very large applicability in the field of nanomedicine. Much of the medical research in this field includes inserting drugs into the silver-based nanoparticles in order to target a certain area for the drug release. However, there has been speculation that the silver in these nanoparticles or even the nanoparticles themselves could potentially pose a toxic threat to the patient. My project is the first step to determining if this threat is real. Specifically, I have developed a sensor that is able to differentiate between the potentially toxic silver nanoparticles drug delivery system, and the known to be toxic silver ions released by the nanoparticles. Future work can then determine the net toxicity hazard to patients.

My other research project entails developing luminescent CO2 sensors. It takes a relatively small concentration of carbon dioxide for a person to start developing CO2 poisoning (headaches/ dizziness). My research has been able to develop CO2 sensors abler to detect concentrations as low as 2% CO2 in air. Therefore, being able to develop low concentration is of vital importance.