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HAYNES RESEARCH GROUP

AT THE INTERFACE OF BIOANALYTICAL AND BIOMATERIALS CHEMISTRY

ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
NANOSCIENCE
SUSTAINABILITY

The Haynes group operates at the interface of bioanalytical and biomaterials chemistry, focusing on pressing challenges in agriculture, environmental monitoring, plasmonic sensing, and toxicology.

A primary, long-standing focus of the group is sustainable nanotechnology—maximizing the positive impacts of engineered nanomaterials while minimizing their unintended ecological effects. Over the last decade, this work has expanded deeply into sustainable nanoagriculture, where we design innovative nanoplatforms to boost plant disease resistance, improve crop yields, and enhance global food security.

Another major area of innovation is the development of next-generation chemical sensors. Leveraging our deep expertise in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and polymer-enabled capture, the group couples advanced analytical techniques with machine learning to achieve rapid, label-free detection of environmental contaminants, foodborne pathogens, and viral particles.

While our work heavily utilizes diverse spectroscopic, materials, and electrochemical tools, the Haynes group constantly explores emerging technologies to understand complex molecular-level interactions and address global sustainability challenges.

NEWS

08.03.2026

Congratulations to Wilanyi for starting her new job with CDC

07.17.2026

Congratulations to Timmy on winning a UMN Department of Chemistry Excellence Fellowship!

07.13.2026

Congratulations to Casey on starting her new job at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

07.10.2026

Good news - group alumna Eleni Spanolios got a job as a Principal Sensor Engineer at Ecolab!

07.03.2026

Congratulations to Christy on being elected as the co-chair of Nanomaterials in Agriculture GRC 2030. She will also deliver two presentations in 2026 (titled "A First-Generation Journey into Academic Science" and "How Avoiding Nanotoxicity Set the Stage for Critical Nanosustainability Applications”). Additionally, she hosted an “Power Hour” event on understanding how one’s values influence career trajectories.

Congratulations to Cheryl on presenting her work as a poster at the Nanomaterials in Agriculture GRC/GRS.

Congratulations to Timmy for winning a COGS Career Development grant!

06.04.2026

Congratulations to Rhea on her win at the 3rd-year Graduate Student Research Symposium!

05.27.2026

Congratulations to everyone who presented at IPrime: Timmy, Abby, Cheryl, Wilanyi, Rhea, Casey, and Clare!

05.22.2026

Congratulations to Judith on her graduation with a double-major in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering!

Congratulations to Suman on her summer internship at Dow.

Congratulations to Timmy on his internship at Merck.

05.14.2026

Congratulations to Suman on being awarded the Richard Stessel Award scholarship from the Air & Waste Management Association! This national award recognizes Suman's academic excellence and professionalism!

04.17.2026

Congratulations to Madi on winning a Chemistry Department undergraduate scholarship!

Congratulations to Emily West on winning both a Chemistry and Chemical Engineering undergraduate scholarship!

Congratulations to Timmy on being selected as a 2026 ACS Future Pharma Innovator! This program will allow him to present at a special symposium during the Fall 2026 ACS meeting and be paired with a mentor in the pharmaceutical industry.

04.10.2026

Rhea and Abby have both been elected to leadership roles for the coming year in ChemBRIDGE as president and treasurer, respectively.

03.28.2026

Congratulations to both Madi and Emily on being selected for Department of Chemistry Summer Research Fellowships so that they can spend the summer with us!

03.20.2026

Timmy won a PANIC NMR 2026 Student Travel Grant to support his participation in the PANIC Conference!

03.18.2026

Congratulations to Cheng-Hsin and Riley as well as former post-bac Sharmaka and former high school researchers Ben and Milin the acceptance of their perspective article titled "PFAS Adsorption on Amine-functionalized Silica Nanoparticles: Interactions, Mechanisms, and Molecular Insights" in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces!

03.17.2026

Congratulations to Wilanyi and Rima on the acceptance of their collaborative manuscript titled "dsRNA-loaded Silica Nanoparticles for Management of Potato Virus Y in Potato Plants" in ACS Nano!

Rhea, Timmy, Suman, and Abby all gave flash talks as part of the Jeanette Brown events.

03.16.2026

Congratulations to Riley, Cheng-Hsin, and Suman on the acceptance of their perspective article titled "Analytical Tools for Understanding Molecular Level Interactions of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) with Sorbent Materials" in Analytical Chemistry!

03.13.2026

Abby won a SciTalk Travel Award to support her presentation at their conference!

03.08-11.2026

Timmy and Casey present their research at Pittcon 2026 in San Antonio, TX.

03.10.2026

Christy gave an invited talk at TechConnect in Raleigh, NC.

02.23.2026

Christy gave an Invited Physical Chemistry Seminar at UCLA.

02.16.2026

Casey won a 2026 Department Chemistry Graduate Student Travel Award to support her presentation at Pittcon 2026!

02.06.2026

Congratulations to group alumna, Dr. Xiaoxiao Yao, and Abby on the the acceptance of a collaborative manuscript titled "Uptake and Impact of Carbon Dots and their Copper Complex on Tomato Health" in Environmental Science: Nano!

02.05.2026

Timmy won a Community of Scholars Program Travel Award!

02.04.2026

Congratulations to Dr. Mahmoud Matar Abed on the successful defense of his PhD thesis, titled "Multiple Approaches for the SERS Detection of Foodborne Pathogenic Bacteria wtih Polymer Affinity Agents."

01.26.2026

Congratulations to Dr. Cheng-Hsin Huang on the successful defense of her PhD thesis, titled "Silica Nanoparticle Design and Application: From Molecular Interaction Insights to Enhancing PFAS Remediation."

01.26.2026

Undergraduate researchers Emily West and Judith Zhu both make the Dean's List!

01.15.2026

Timmy won a 2026 Department Chemistry Graduate Student Travel Award to support his presentation at Pittcon 2026!

News Archive

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FUNDING

The Haynes Research Group received and receives gracious financial support from the following agencies:

Start-up funds and a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship from the University of Minnesota

Distinguish the McKnight University Professorship from the University of Minnesota

Characterization Facility

MnDrive Advancing Industry, Conserving our Environment from the University of Minnesota for the "Phytoremediation of PFAS Using Nanomaterials "

Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (LLCMR) for 2025 proposal "Phytoremediation of PFAS from Soil" and 2027 "Controlling Oxidative Stress Using Nanobiostimulants for Resilient Crops "