Understanding Nanomaterials (PDF)

Malkiat S. Johal is a professor of Physical Chemistry at Pomona College. He obtained a first class honors degree in chemistry from the University of Warwick, UK. His research laboratory at Pomona College focuses on using self-assembly and ionic adsorption processes to fabricate nanomaterials for optical and biochemical applications. He also explores fundamental phenomena such as ion-pair complexation, adsorption, surface wettability, and intermolecular non-covalent interactions in materials at interfaces. He has published more than eighty research papers, mostly co-authored by his undergraduate research students. He teaches courses in physical chemistry, general chemistry and soft nanomaterials.

Lewis E. Johnson is a research scientist at the University of Washington. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Nanotechnology from the University of Washington under the guidance of Professor Bruce Robinson. He has taught at Pomona College (his undergraduate alma mater) as a postdoctoral lecturer and worked as postdoctoral research associate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he conducted research on glass formation in calcium aluminate electride semiconductors with Dr. Peter Sushko and on allosteric modulation of electron transfer in nitrogenase with Dr. Simone Raugei. His current research involves designing and characterizing new nonlinear optical dyes and modeling the formation and structure of complex non-crystalline materials, among other projects.