Christy F. Landes is an American physical chemist who is the Jerry A. Walker Endowed Chair in chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She previously was the Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Chair at Rice University. She seeks to understand the structure-function relationships in biological processes and materials. She was appointed a National Academy of SciencesKavli Fellow in 2019.
Landes joined the University of Houston at an assistant professor in 2006, and moved to Rice University in 2009.[1] She was appointed Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Chair in 2021. Her early independent work considered super-resolution single molecule spectroscopy for the characterization of biomolecules using FRET with membrane receptors and [2] diffusion within polymer brushes and porous hydrogel materials.[3][4] She has pioneered the application of super-resolution microscopy to understand chromatography[5] and has focused on tuning the plasmonic properties of nanomaterials using electrochemistry and stimuli-responsive polymers.[6] She has also shown how silver ions disperse from the tips of gold-silver nanoparticle alloys, which may improve catalytic activity.[7] Her biophysical chemistry work has demonstrated that single-molecule approaches could be used to better understand cancer metastasis.[8]
Landes established the NSF Center for Adapting Flaws into Features (CAFF) in 2021 and serves as its director.[9] The center investigates the defects in silicon-based electronics that hold promise for improving device performance, explore the structural and optoelectronic processes that make these flaws influential, and realize technologies that incorporate and exploit these flaws.[10]
Landes was elected Chair of the Physical Chemistry Division in 2020.[1]
