Chemistry

Jillian L. Dempsey

University of North Carolina

Jillian L. Dempsey is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where
she holds the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professorship. She is currently the
Deputy Director of the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE)
and an associate editor for ACS Electrochemistry.

Jillian received her S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 where she
worked in the laboratory of Prof. Daniel G. Nocera. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, she
carried out research with Prof. Harry B. Gray and Dr. Jay R. Winkler at the California Institute of
Technology, receiving her PhD in 2011. From 2011–2012 she was an NSF ACC Postdoctoral
Fellow with Daniel R. Gamelin at the University of Washington.

In 2012, Jillian joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research
group explores charge transfer processes associated with solar fuel production, including
proton-coupled electron transfer reactions and electron transfer across interfaces. Her research
bridges molecular and materials chemistry and relies heavily on methods of physical inorganic
chemistry, including transient absorption spectroscopy and electrochemistry.
She has received numerous awards including the Harry B. Gray Award for Creative Work in
Inorganic Chemistry by a Young Investigator (2019), the J. Carlyle Sitterson Award for Teaching
First-Year Students (2017), a Sloan Research Fellowship (2016), a Packard Fellowship for
Science and Engineering (2015), the Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award (2020), and the
University Award for Advancement of Women (2021)., October 7, 2024

Free and open to the public

This lecture is made possible through the generous support of the Thomas Lord Charitable Trust.