This web site is to introduce research and graduate programs at Penn State offering training opportunities in biophysics and biophysical chemistry. Diverse biophysical research programs are active in Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB), and Biomedical engineering departments. Shown below is a list of faculty members and research topics. For information on the graduate programs, please refer to the departmental web sites: Graduate programs in Chemistry, Physics, BMB, and Biomedical Engineering.

Reka Albert (Physics): Modeling of signal transduction pathways

Lu Bai (BMB and Physics): Single cell/molecule imaging, Nucleosome/Chromatin biophysics

Philip Bevilacqua (Chemistry and BMB): RNA biophysics, in vivo RNA folding

David Boehr (Chemistry): Biological NMR, Protein structure

Peter Butler (Biomedical Engineering): Cellular mechanobiology

Craig Cameron (BMB): Enzyme kinetics, RNA virus

Chris Keating (Chemistry): Artificial cells, liquid-liquid phase separation as a model for intracellular compartmentalization, reactions in crowded and compartmentalized biomimetic media

Paul Cremer (Chemistry): Ligand-Receptor Binding at Lipid Membranes, Ion Specific Effects on Protein Folding (Hofmeister Chemistry), Interfacial Water Structure, and Nonlinear Optical Spectroscopy

John Golbeck (BMB and Chemistry): Spectroscopic dynamics of photosynthesis

Dezhe Jin (Physics)

Tae-Hee Lee (Chemistry): Single molecule methods, Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, Optical tweezers, Nucleosome biophysics, DNA replication mechanisms

William Noid (Chemistry): Theoretical and computational biophysics, Protein structure

Edward O’brien (Chemistry): Theoretical and computational biophysics, Ribosome, Translation

Scott Showalter (Chemistry and BMB): Biological NMR, Intrinsically disordered protein

Xin Zhang (Chemistry and BMB): in vivo Protein folding