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Interests

The Levis laboratory focuses on understanding the photochemistry and photophysics of molecules interacting with ultrafast, ultra-intense laser pulses. Ultrafast means laser pulses that are only a few millionths of a billionth of a second. Ultra-intense means laser fields approaching the fields binding electrons within molecules. We investigate laser vaporization of condensed phase systems, laser filamentation, laser generation of nanomaterials, and the control of chemical reactions using shaped laser pulses. These efforts are leading to new ways to diagnose disease, map cellular components, detect improvised explosive devices, classify tissues and phenotype, classify explosives for forensics analysis, and to synthesize monodispersed nanomaterials. 

Biography

1988-1990             Postdoctoral researcher, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder

1998                         Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University

1984                         B.S. La Salle College     

Selected Awards

National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award.  National Institutes of Health Research Career Development Award. Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Fellow American Physical Society.