Welcome Professor Elizabeth Young

The Chemistry Department welcomes Dr. Elizabeth Young as Assistant Professor of Chemistry.  A native of Macungie, Pennsylvania, Dr. Young received her B.S. in Chemistry (with a minor in German) from Haverford College.  After spending a year abroad in Germany, she returned  to the U.S. to begin her graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Daniel G. Nocera where she conducted research regarding proton-coupled electron transfer in model systems utilizing electrochemistry and both steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopies.  After completing her Ph.D., she received an NSF American Competitiveness in Chemistry Fellowship to sponsor her post-doctoral work with Vladimir Bulovic in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT. During her post-doc, she learned solid state device fabrication and gained insight about how engineers design organic solar cells.In 2011, Dr. Young joined the Amherst College Chemistry Department as an Assistant Professor. Her research involves investigations of photo-induced proton-coupled electron transfer reactions in model systems and studies of charge transfer dynamics in molecules and materials of interest for next generation photovoltaics. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation as well as the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. At Lehigh, she will establish an experimental physical chemistry laboratory that will include a laser facility for ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy.