Lisa Utschig is a Chemist with the Solar Energy Conversion Group and Lead Principal Investigator - Natural Photosynthesis.

Education

• BA, Cornell College
• PhD, Northwestern University
• Enrico Fermi Scholar, Argonne National Laboratory

Recent Honors and Awards

• Fellow, AAAS (2023)
• Summer SOTM  AWIS-Chicago (2022)
• University of Chicago Argonne, LLC Board of Governor’s Distinguished Performance Award (2020)
• Women at the Forefront of Energy Research, ACS Energy Letters (2020)
• Speaker, Presidential Symposium, 248^th ACS National Meeting (2014)

Primary Research Interests

• Investigation of photochemical energy conversion in natural photosynthetic systems
• Development of innovative bioinorganic approaches to modify photosynthetic proteins for solar fuel production
• Creation of novel biohybrid complexes for elucidating fundamental mechanisms of photosynthetic charge accumulation and  photocatalysis

Select Recent Publications

1. “EPR studies of ferredoxin in spinach and cyanobacterial thylakoids related to photosystem I-driven NADP+ reduction” Special Issue: ​“Energy conversion reactions in natural and artificial photosynthesis” Photosynthesis Research, 2024.  DOI:10.1007/s11120-023-01072-4
2. “Coherences of photoinduced electron spin qubit pair states in Photosystem I” J. Phys. Chem. B, 2023. DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c06658
3.  ​“Solar water splitting Pt-nanoparticle photosystem I thylakoid systems:  Catalyst identification, location and oligomeric structure”  Special Issue: ​“Applied Photosynthesis:  Putting the Green into Green Energy” BBA Bioenergetics, 2023. DOI:10.1016/j.bbabio.2023.148974
4. “Biohybrid photosynthetic charge accumulation detected by flavin semiquinone formation in ferredoxin-NADP⁺ reductase”  Chemical Science, 2022.  DOI:10.1039/d2sc01546c
5. “Light-harvesting biohybrids for enhanced solar-to-chemical conversion technologies” Chem, 2022.  DOI:10.1016/j.chempr.2021.12.011
6. “Quantum sensing of electron transfer pathways in natural photosynthesis using time-resolved high-field EPR/ENDOR spectroscopy” J. Phys. Chem. B, 2021.  DOI:  10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c00946
7. “Preface to the special issue:  photosynthesis-inspired biohybrid and biomimetic systems”  Photosynthesis Research, 2020.  DOI: 10.1007/s11120-019-00703-z
8. “Women at the forefront of energy research:  A virtual issue” ACS Energy Letters, 2020. DOI:  10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02695
9. “Interprotein electron transfer biohybrid system for photocatalytic H₂ production” Photosynthesis Research, 2020.  DOI: 10.1007/s11120-019-00705-x
10.  ​“Spin-correlated radical pairs as quantum sensors of bidirectional ET mechanisms in Photosystem I”  J. Phys. Chem. B, 2019. DOI: 10.1021/acs/jpcb.9b06636
11.  ​“Z-scheme solar water splitting via self-assembly of photosystem I-catalyst hybrids in thylakoid membranes”  Chemical Science, 2018. DOI:10.1039/c8sc02841a
12. “Charge separation related to photocatalytic H₂ production from a Ru-apoflavodoxin-Ni biohybrid”  ACS Energy Letters, 2017. DOI:10.1021/acsenergylett.6b00614
13. “Ru-protein-Co biohybrids designed for solar hydrogen production:  understanding electron transfer pathways related to photocatalytic function”  Chemical Science, 2016, 7, 7068-7078. 
14. “Modular homogeneous chromophore-catalyst assemblies”  Acc. Chem. Res. 2016, 49(5), 835-843.
15. “Light-driven hydrogen production from Photosystem I-catalyst hybrids” Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 2015, 25, 1-8.