Welcome to the professional website of Trisha Andrew!
I was recently named one of five recipients of the 2011 L'Oreal USA Fellowships For Women in Science. The Fellows were selected from a competitive pool of candidates by an interdisciplinary review panel and a distinguished jury of nine eminent scientists and engineers based on several criteria, including exceptional academic records and intellectual merit, clearly-articulated research proposals with the potential for scientific advancement, outstanding letters of recommendation from advisers, and overall excellence. The peer-review process was managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Fellow with Vladimir Bulovic in the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics (ONE) Lab at MIT, working on studying polymer-fullerene interfaces in and designing fullerene alternatives for bulk-heterojunction solar cells. I am also interested in synthesizing and characterizing covalently-bonded organic chromophore/quantum dot composites.
While working as a graduate researcher with Timothy M. Swager at MIT (2005-2010), I focused on designing and synthesizing organic chromophores and polymers for explosives detection, biological imaging, lithography and organic electronics. I received my Ph.D. in organic chemistry from MIT in 2010.
I also worked for Natia Frank as an undergraduate researcher between 2002 and 2005, where I became interested in magnetic and magnetoelectronic materials. I earned a B.S. with honors in chemistry from the University of Washington in 2005.
As an independent researcher, I am interested in demonstrating the synergistic relationship between synthetic organic chemists and device engineers. Grandly speaking, my research interests for the near future are focused on studying the effect of electron spin on optoelectronic devices and fabricating organic, nanostructured spintronic devices.
If you are so inclined, you can download my CV and/or my Ph.D. Thesis.