Luisa Whittaker-Brooks

Whittaker grew up in Panama. As a child, she became interested in the hydroelectric dams that powered Panama.[1] She started to think about alternative sources of energy.[1] Whittaker earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Panama, where she studied analytical chemistry.[2] She moved to the United States for her graduate studies, where she joined the University at Buffalo as a Fulbright Program fellow.[3] There she completed her master's and doctoral degrees within three and a half years.[4][5] For her doctoral research Whittaker studied vanadium oxide.[5] Vanadium oxide is opaque when hot and transparent when cold, and Whittaker wondered whether it could be used to coat windows and keep buildings cool.[6] Throughout her doctoral research she worked to lower the transition temperature that this phase change occurs at, and eventually commercialised her technology.[6] Whittaker-Brooks worked as a postdoctoral scholar with Yueh-Lin Loo, where she used low-temperature hydrothermal methods to study zinc oxide nanostructures.[7][8]

Whittaker studies novel photovoltaic and thermoelectric materials for energy generation and storage.[1] She is particularly interested in chalcogenides and perovskites and how their composition and structure impacts their electronic properties.[2] Whittaker has researched how bias stress and sample heterogeneity impact the performance and operational lifetime of organic-inorganic halide perovskites (OIHPs).[9] She has also studied the role of excitons in their operational stability and impact of moisture and oxygen.[9] In 2019 she was elected to the advisory board of ChemNanoMat.[10]

• 2007 Fulbright Program Fellow[11]
• 2013 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards[12][13]
• 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Science Milligan Mason Award for Women in the Chemical Sciences[14][15]
• 2017 Chemical & Engineering News' Talented 12[1]
• 2017 National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Research[16]
• 2017 American Physical Society Ovshinsky Sustainable Energy Fellow[3]
• 2018 Journal of Materials Chemistry A Emerging Leader[17]
• 2021 Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award[18]

• Lee, Vincent; Whittaker, Luisa; Jaye, Cherno; Baroudi, Kristen M.; Fischer, Daniel A.; Banerjee, Sarbajit (2009-08-25). "Large-Area Chemically Modified Graphene Films: Electrophoretic Deposition and Characterization by Soft X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy". Chemistry of Materials. 21 (16): 3905–3916. doi:10.1021/cm901554p. ISSN 0897-4756.
• Whittaker, Luisa; Jaye, Cherno; Fu, Zugen; Fischer, Daniel A.; Banerjee, Sarbajit (2009-07-01). "Depressed Phase Transition in Solution-Grown VO2 Nanostructures". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 131 (25): 8884–8894. doi:10.1021/ja902054w. ISSN 0002-7863. PMID 19505072.
• Whittaker, Luisa; Patridge, Christopher J.; Banerjee, Sarbajit (2011-04-07). "Microscopic and Nanoscale Perspective of the Metal−Insulator Phase Transitions of VO2: Some New Twists to an Old Tale". The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 2 (7): 745–758. doi:10.1021/jz101640n.