Katerina Kanevche

I received my doctorate degree from the Free University in Berlin, Germany in the lab of Prof. Joachim Heberle at the department of Physics. In my thesis “IR near-field nanoscopy and spectroscopy of cells and soft matter” I employed sophisticated infrared microscopic techniques, such as scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (sSNOM) and nano-resolved Fourier transformed infrared (nanoFTIR) spectroscopy to investigate various biological materials. In this work I was able to resolve the subcellular structure of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and assign the infrared absorption of various organelles to molecular vibrations with spatial resolution of 20 nm, thus beyond the diffraction limit.

My research in Princeton is at the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology – I work closely with both my PIs Martin Jonikas and Herschel Rabitz (department of Chemistry). The aim of my postdoctoral project is to develop a super-resolution infrared microscope, able to image CO2 molecules within Chlamydomonas cells.  With this research I hope to answer key questions on the carbon fixing mechanisms in these algae.

I am located at the Frick Chemistry laboratory (https://rabitz.princeton.edu/2021/09/01/katerina-kanevche/).