Frontiers in Nanotechnology Seminar Series Presents, Michael Ross, from University of Massachusetts Lowell

“Making Poor Metals Rich at the Nanoscale”

Multimetallic materials often outperform their single-element counterparts, yet research has primarily focused on transition metals, overlooking the potential of post-transition metals. Though traditionally seen as brittle and chemically weak, these elements exhibit directional bonding, diverse structures, and unique electronic properties.

This talk will explore how the precise integration of post-transition metals with noble metals at the nanoscale leads to highly tunable optical properties, rich phase mixing, and novel three-dimensional morphologies. Key synthetic strategies will be discussed, including how post-transition metal alloying enables continuous plasmonic absorption tuning and how bismuth-driven structural transformations enhance electrocatalysis for renewable feedstock conversion. These findings open new avenues for designing advanced functional materials with tailored properties for catalysis, energy, and optical applications.

Get to Know Michael
(Click HERE for Michael’s CV)

Michael Ross is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research interests focus on understanding the unique optical, chemical, and catalytic properties of metallic nanomaterials, and leveraging those properties to address challenges in energy, environmental detection, and photonics.

He has been recognized as a Scialog Negative Emissions Fellow, an Emerging Investigator by Nanoscale, and the Winner of the NASA Centennial CO2 Conversion Challenge. Before that, he was a CIFAR Bio-Inspired Solar Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship with Peidong Yang at the University of California, Berkeley. Michael earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Northwestern University as a National Defense Science and Engineering (NDSEG) Fellow.

At Northwestern, under the guidance of Chad Mirkin and George Schatz, he focused on the design of optical properties in nanoparticle systems whose structure was programmed by DNA. He earned his B.S. in biochemistry at Providence College.