Staff Scientist, NCEM
510.486.5355
Biography
Katherine Sytwu graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelors in physics and mathematics in 2014. She then obtained her PhD in applied physics at Stanford University in 2021, working with Prof. Jennifer Dionne to understand how surface plasmons can be used to direct catalyst transformations. She was then a postdoctoral researcher, and later Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow, at the Molecular Foundry with Prof. Mary Scott, studying the robustness of neural networks and other machine learning techniques for high-throughput TEM image analysis of nanoparticles. In 2024, she started as a staff scientist at the Molecular Foundry.
Research Interests
My research focuses on how nanophotonics can be used to direct and control nanomaterial dynamics, and understanding the consequences of heterogeneous light-matter interactions at the nanoscale for applications in light-driven systems like photocatalysts. I specialize in optically-coupled and in situ TEM, with a heavy interest in low loss electron spectroscopy and correlative optical/electron spectroscopy for characterizing nanoscale optoelectronic properties. I’m also interested in data-driven techniques for improving interpretability of in situ and multimodal electron microscopy data streams.
