At Rowland Institute, photosynthesis inspires quest for greener future

Viktoriia Morad wants to access light.

The researcher, new to The Rowland Institute at Harvard, knows she may not reach her ultimate goal of re-creating photosynthesis in the lab. But in her first six months on campus, Morad has used her work on light to unlock chemical transformations that could play a central role in building a more sustainable future.

“We’re trying to design systems that mimic the photosynthetic way of synthesizing other chemicals,” explained the Rowland fellow in physics and material sciences. “We want to make all sorts of reactions available with light.”

Sunlight, she continued, is the ultimate green fuel. In photosynthesis, light is harvested and broken down to spur chemical reactions. Morad looks to mimic that process, using solution-derived nanocrystals to harvest light. One day, she hopes, these tools can be used to make the world a greener place.

“One of the big reactions people are always trying to do is to capture CO₂,” she explained, noting that this is part of what photosynthesis does. The ideal would entail converting CO₂ to compounds such as methane, methanol, or more complex multi-carbon products which are less harmful to the environment and also potentially useful to industry as fuels and feedstock chemicals.

In the meanwhile, Morad has learned to mimic natural processes for other ends. “A lot of people, especially physicists, say, ‘Oh, we also make semiconductors,’” she said. But Morad has found a very different approach to channeling energy. She and her team “grow” semiconductors from solutions.

“We’re working in a wet chemistry lab where we're doing synthesis of nanoparticles,” Morad said. Her research focuses on the surface of these tiny materials, which play a role in photocatalytic reactions.

The Rowland Institute, with its cross-disciplinary focus, is an ideal place to pursue such ambitious research, Morad said. Calling her work “bio-inspired,” she noted that the Rowland exposes her to work by physicists as well as a diversity of researchers in the natural sciences.

“I want to have this interdisciplinary approach where people from very different kinds of chemistry — physical chemistry, material chemistry, organic chemistry — can bring their expertise from different perspectives together, because the goal is to build something that is very complex,” she said.

In addition, Rowland has offered her a community. “It is an extremely supportive environment, and everyone is just so interested in and invested in our success,” she said.

Grateful for the “insane luck” that brought her here, Morad has already been on an intense journey. Born and raised in Lviv, Ukraine, she was awarded a scholarship to complete her master’s degree at ETH Zurich. She stayed long enough to earn her doctorate, ultimately living in Switzerland for eight years. “That opened up the whole world of science to me,” she said.

Her dissertation adviser urged her application for a fellowship at Rowland. “He said, ‘I can see that you like working with students, you like working on big projects, global projects, and we need more women in science, so you should definitely apply.’”

She did and in some ways, Morad said, she is living out a long-held dream. As a child, she was an avid fan of “MythBusters,” the science show pitched at a young audience. “It was always on TV on Saturdays, so I watched it a lot,” Morad confessed.

Smitten with the idea of “scientists who are able to ask these crazy questions and then build a hypothesis and test it,” Morad credits the show with encouraging her to develop a “romantic view of science.”

It’s a perspective she now hopes to share. Although Morad is still setting up her lab, she looks forward to teaching and working with students, including undergraduates, whom she encourages to reach out for internships. “They’re often very enthusiastic,” she said. “They see things I might not see, and they're open to new things.”

Such fresh ideas, Morad added, fit perfectly with her mission of using research to discover greener, more efficient ways to live.

“I’m trying to marry the two views that I have,” she said. “One that there’s this mythical amazing science that we get to do here in our ivory towers. But then there’s also the real world and what we should be pushing as scientists for an agenda for a better future.”