معرفی
Kelly Gaffney is an Associate Professor of Photon Science at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Chemistry. She leads a research team focused on femtosecond-resolution measurements of chemical dynamics using ultrafast x-ray lasers, such as the LCLS at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her work bridges ultrafast optical laser science and x-ray spectroscopy to observe chemical reactions at the atomic scale.
Education: PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley (2001). Research interests include non-equilibrium dynamics of electronic excited states, light-driven catalysis, and the development of ultrafast x-ray techniques. She has pioneered studies on transition metal complexes, solvation dynamics, and molecular structural changes using femtosecond x-ray scattering and spectroscopy.
Affiliations include the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), the Center for Molecular Analysis and Design (CMAD), and ChEM-H (Chemistry, Engineering & Medicine for Human Health). Her research integrates experimental and theoretical approaches to uncover design principles for novel photocatalytic systems.
Key contributions include real-space observations of transition metal complex dissociation, picosecond spin transitions in nanomaterials, and the application of resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering to probe electronic structure dynamics. Collaborations focus on advancing x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) technology for chemical dynamics studies.
