My name is Anderson Duraes, and I will join Professor Wenlin Zhang's group as a postdoctoral scholar in September 2023. I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Enantiomeric Separation and the Hydrodynamic Properties of Chiral Molecules" in August 2023 at the University of Notre Dame.

My Ph.D. research is highly interdisciplinary, combining aspects of Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering. I investigated the propulsion of micro- and nano-swimmers in a fluid and the possible separation of chiral molecules (without performing any chemical reactions). Both processes can be thought of in analogy to a simple screw, in the conversion of molecular rotation into translational motion. The rotation-translation coupling of a screw can be measured through a geometric property — the screw's pitch — which can also apply to molecular-scale objects. The extension of pitch to swimmers and molecules could be done through the translational (tt) and rotation-translation (rt) blocks of the resistance tensor, which describes the force and torque experienced by an object in a fluid. We were able to show that pitch is a relation between the eigenvalues of the (tt) and (rt) blocks, and compared the pitch values to experimental data on microswimmers and to molecular dynamics simulations of solvated mixtures of enantiomers. The computed pitch values match experiments and molecular dynamics simulations and can be estimated on a time scale of seconds, while the simulations require days or weeks of computer time. With the pitch values, it was possible to suggest design parameters for a device to separate chiral molecules on a centimeter length scale on the timescale of hours or days.

My future goal is to become a faculty member at a research-oriented university and develop an interdisciplinary research program, combining tools from different areas to solve scientific problems. I believe a postdoctoral position is an excellent opportunity to achieve this step. Gaining more research experience to build a strong research program and developing essential skills required for a faculty position will complete my training to become a professor.