About
Andrew J. Wilson grew up in northeast Iowa and attended The University of Iowa where he completed his B.S. in chemistry and conducted research in sonoelectrochemistry in the lab of Johna Leddy. Following graduation, he joined the lab of Katherine A. Willets at The University of Texas at Austin for graduate studies, where he developed optical readouts to report on electrochemistry at the nanoscale. In 2015, Andrew completed his Ph.D. in physical chemistry and assisted in moving the Willets Lab to Temple University, where he continued as a postdoctoral research fellow. He moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana‒Champaign in 2016 where he was a Springborn Postdoctoral Fellow and performed research in plasmonic photochemistry in the lab of Prashant K. Jain. Andrew will start his faculty career at the University of Louisville in Fall 2020.
Research Interest
A common theme in our research is using light‒matter interactions and electrical energy to measure, drive, and control interfacial chemical transformations at the nanoscale. In particular, we are interested in advancing our fundamental understanding of the interconversion of chemical and electrical energy. Our approach is to develop and employ high resolution optical microscopy and spectroscopy to investigate electrochemical processes beyond the ensemble, at the single particle, single molecule level. We aim to gain and leverage mechanistic insight into chemical reactions to achieve high efficiency and selectivity in fuel generation/consumption reactions and increase the performance of high-capacity, rechargeable batteries.
To accomplish our research goals, we utilize tools that include: optical microscopy, Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy, electrochemistry, nanoparticle synthesis, nanofabrication, chromatography, electron microscopy, super‒resolution imaging, plasmonics, density functional theory, chemometrics.