Lisa McElwee-White is currently the Colonel Allen R. and Margaret G. Crow Professor of

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

Career

Lisa McElwee-White received her B.S. degree in

from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

in 1979, and completed her Ph.D. degree at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

under the supervision of Dennis A. Dougherty. After two years of postdoctoral work at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

with

James P. Collman James P. Collman (born 1932) is an American chemist who is the George A. and Hilda M. Daubert Professor of Chemistry, emeritus at Stanford University. Collman's research focused on organometallic bioinorganic chemistry. Collman is a member of t ...

, she joined the Stanford faculty as an assistant professor in

in 1985. She moved to the

as an associate professor in 1993 and was promoted to Professor in 1997. Following a term as Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, she returned to full-time conducting research and teaching in 1998. She currently serves as director of the UF Beckman Scholars Program and recently served as the Director of the NSF-CCI Center for Nanostructured Electronic Materials. Professor McElwee-White's current research interests center around the applications of

organometallic chemistry Organometallic chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and so ...

in materials science. Her work has been funded by a variety of federal agencies, foundations, and private companies including NSF, DOE, ARO, ONR, NASA, ACS-PRF, the Beckman Foundation, HHMI and FEI. She has authored more than 140 peer-reviewed publications and has presented more than 180 invited lectures. Her Editorial Board service includes Organometallics, the

Journal of Organic Chemistry ''The Journal of Organic Chemistry'', colloquially known as ''JOC'', is a peer-reviewed scientific journal for original contributions of fundamental research in all branches of theory and practice in organic and bioorganic chemistry. It is publi ...

, Letters in Organic Chemistry and Current Organic Chemistry. She has recently served as Chair of the Division of Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society and was named as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2010. Her recent awards include the Florida Award (2015) and the Charles H. Stone Award (2012).

Research

Chemical Vapor Deposition

Chemical Vapor Deposition Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In typical CVD, the wafer (substra ...

(CVD) is a technique that produces materials by depositing solid films. It has been a very attractive process because it is chemically selective process, the material produced is high-quality and high-performing, and the thickness of the film can be easily controlled. McElwee-White has studied the various complexities of CVD on

tungsten nitride Tungsten nitride (W2N, WN, WN2) is an inorganic compound, a nitride of tungsten. It is a hard, solid, brown-colored ceramic material that is electrically conductive and decomposes in water. It is used in microelectronics as a contact material, fo ...

and carbonitride films (WN_xC_y films), exploring tungsten nitrido complexes as precursors and analyzing the effect of ligand structure on the reaction. She has also expanded her research scope to the metallization of organic thin films. For the process of metallization of organic thin films, normal thermal CVD processes which require high temperatures usually destroy organic films. McElwee-White introduced

photochemical Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet (wavelength from 100 to 400 nm), visible light (400–7 ...

CVD processes as an alternative, and employed ruthenium-based precursors.

Electron Beam-Induced Deposition

Electron beam-induced deposition Electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID) is a process of decomposing gaseous molecules by an electron beam leading to deposition of non-volatile fragments onto a nearby substrate. The electron beam is usually provided by a scanning electron microsco ...

(EBID) uses a high energy, focused electron beam to deposit

nanomaterials * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to nan ...

onto a surface using organometallic precursors. It is useful because it is able to produce three-dimensional nanostructures with well-controlled size, shape and interparticle distance. McElwee-White has explored EBID using a variety of organometallic precursors, such as ''cis''-Pt(CO)₂Cl₂ to make pure

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

nanostructures and (η3-C₃H₅)Ru(CO)₃Br to make Ru-based

nanostructure A nanostructure is a structure of intermediate size between microscopic and molecular structures. Nanostructural detail is microstructure at nanoscale. In describing nanostructures, it is necessary to differentiate between the number of dimens ...

s and to study the effects of

ligand In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule (functional group) that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding with the metal generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's electr ...

Major publications

*
Design of Precursors for the CVD of Inorganic Thin Films
" McElwee-White, L. ''Dalton Trans.'', 2006, 5327 - 5333. *
Tungsten Nitrido Complexes as Precursors for Low Temperature Chemical Vapor Deposition of WN_xC_y Films as Diffusion Barriers for Cu Metallization
" McClain, K.R.; O’Donohue, C.; Koley, A.; Bonsu, R.O.; Abboud, K.A.; Revelli, J.C.; Anderson, T.J.; McElwee-White, L., ''J. Am. Chem. Soc.'' 2014, ''136'', 1650–1662. *
Low Temperature Deposition of WN_xC_y Cu Diffusion Barriers using WN(NEt₂)₃ as a Single-Source Precursor
" O’Donohue, C.T.; McClain, K.R.; Koley, A.; Revelli, J.C.; McElwee-White, L.; Anderson, T.J., ''ECS J. Solid State Sci. Tech.'', 2015, ''4'', N3180-N3187. *
Effect of Ligand Structure on Chemical Vapor Deposition of WN_xC_y Thin Films from Tungsten Nitrido Complexes of the type WN(NR₂)₃
" Koley, A.; O’Donohue, C.; Nolan, M.M.; McClain, K.R.; Bonsu, R.O.; Korotkov, R.Y.; Anderson, T.J., McElwee-White, L., ''Chem. Mater.'', 2015, ''27'', 8326−8336. *
Photochemical CVD of Ru on Functionalized Self-Assembled Monolayers from Organometallic Precursors
" Johnson, K.R.; Arevalo Rodriguez, P.; Brewer, C.R.; Brannaka, J.A.; Shi, Z.; Yang, J.; Salazar, B.; McElwee-White, L.; Walker, A.V., ''J. Chem. Phys.'', 2017, ''146'', 052816. *
Understanding the Electron Stimulated Surface Reactions of Organometallic Complexes to Enable Design of Precursors for Electron Beam Induced Deposition
" Spencer, J.; Rosenberg, S.; Barclay, M.; Wu, Y.-C.; McElwee-White, L.; Fairbrother, D.H., ''Appl. Phys. A''., 2014, ''117'', 1631–1644. *
Electron Induced Surface Reactions of cis-Pt(CO)₂Cl₂: a Route to Focused Electron Beam Induced Deposition of Pure Pt Nanostructures
" Spencer, J.; Wu, Y.-C.; McElwee-White, L.; Fairbrother, D.H., ''J. Am. Chem. Soc.'', 2016,''138'', 9172– 9182. *
Electron Induced Surface Reactions of η³-Allyl Ruthenium Tricarbonyl Bromide [η³-(C₃H₅)Ru(CO)₃Br
Contrasting the Behavior of Different Ligands]," Spencer, J.; Brannaka, J.A.; Barclay, M.; McElwee-White, L.; Fairbrother, D.H., ''J. Phys. Chem C.,'' 2015, ''119'', 15349–15359. *
Low energy electron-induced decomposition of (η³-C₃H₅)Ru(CO)₃Br, a potential focused electron beam induced deposition precursor with a heteroleptic ligand set
" Thorman, R.M.; Brannaka, J.A.; McElwee-White, L.; Ingólfsson, O., ''Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.''., 2017, DOI:10.1039/C7CP01696D.

Personal life

McElwee-White enjoys playing the

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

. She was able to perform in several concerts such as the “Lobby Concert” and the “Flute Choir Showcase” with the Gainesville Flute Ensemble in the 32nd Annual Convention of the

National Flute Association The National Flute Association (NFA) is the largest flute organization in the world, with roughly 5,000 members from more than 50 countries. It is an association in the United States with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Members include soloists, ...

in August 2004. Another hobby that she has is

horseback riding Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding (Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, driving, and vaulting. This broad description includes the ...

. She owns several horses on her property that she loves to ride on during her free time.

Awards and honors

Her accolades include: * 2016 UF Technology Innovator Award * 2016 Queens University-Frost Lecturer * 2015 Florida Award

External links

A Video interview of Professor McElwee-White

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McElwee-White, Lisa Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Florida faculty 21st-century American chemists University of Kansas alumni California Institute of Technology alumni