Christine Luscombe
Japanese-American chemist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christine Luscombe FRSC is a Japanese-British chemist who is a professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.[2] Her research investigates polymer chemistry, organic electronics, organic photovoltaics[1] and the synthesis of novel materials for processable electronics. She serves on the editorial boards of Macromolecules, Advanced Functional Materials, the Annual Review of Materials Research and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Christine Luscombe | |
|---|---|
 Christine Luscombe | |
| Born | Christine Keiko Luscombe |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
| Awards | NSF CAREER Award Sloan Research Fellowship |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Polymer chemistry Organic electronics Organic photovoltaics[1] |
| Institutions | University of Washington University of California, Berkeley Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology University of Cambridge |
| Thesis | Surface modifications using supercritical carbon dioxide (2004) |
| Doctoral advisor | Andrew Bruce Holmes |
| Website | groups |
Early life and education
Luscombe was born and raised in Kobe, Japan.[3] She became interested in chemistry at high school, and grew up surrounded by electronic devices developed by Sony and Panasonic.[4] She was an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge, where she specialised in chemistry.[3] She eventually[when?] joined the group of Andrew Bruce Holmes, where she worked on polymer synthesis and earned her PhD in 2004.[5]
Research and career
After her PhD, Luscombe was awarded a junior research fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge.[when?] She simultaneously joined the group of Jean Fréchet at the University of California, Berkeley.[3] After two years in California, Luscombe was made an assistant professor at the University of Washington. In her early career she was awarded an National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award and a Sloan Research Fellowship.[3] She was made an associate professor in 2011 and the Robert J. Cambell Development Professor in 2017.[citation needed] Her research considers the synthesis of conjugated small molecules and polymers for photovoltaics. She is particularly interested in the identification of structure-property relationships and achieving a better understanding of how microstructure impacts optoelectronic properties.[6] She has particularly focused on the rational design of high mobility polymers.[7] She has contributed to International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) initiatives on polymer terminology and polymer education.[8][4]
In 2020, Luscombe joined the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.[9] In an interview with Chemical & Engineering News, Luscombe says that she began to feel unwelcome in the United States when Donald Trump instigated Executive Order 13769, the so-called Muslim travel ban.[10] She said that she chose to leave the United States due to the growing racism and mismanagement of the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[10]
Awards and honors
Her awards and honors include:
- 2015 Kavli Fellow[3]
- 2016 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)[3]
- 2017 University of Washington College of Engineering Faculty Award[citation needed]
- 2020 Elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences[11]
Selected publications
Her publications[1] include:
- All-inkjet-printed flexible electronics fabrication on a polymer substrate by low-temperature high-resolution selective laser sintering of metal nanoparticles[12]
- The future of organic photovoltaics[13]
- Direct nanoimprinting of metal nanoparticles for nanoscale electronics fabrication[14]
- Semiconducting polymers : controlled synthesis and microstructure[15]