Mahima Sneha Joining Chemistry Department

Dr. Mahima Sneha obtained her Ph.D. in 2018 from Stanford University under the supervision of Prof. Richard N. Zare. Her thesis work which led to the first-ever direct observation of quantum mechanical interference effects in reactive scattering for the gas phase reaction of H + H ₂ was a finalist for the Justin Jankunas doctoral dissertation award in Chemical Physics. Following her Ph.D., she secured a Marie Skłodowska -Curie postdoctoral grant to work with Prof. Andrew Orr-Ewing FRS at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. At Bristol, she gained expertise in ultrafast condensed phase transient vibrational and electronic spectroscopies and led the research on the mechanistic investigation of photoredox catalytic reactions. Mahima next joined Prof. Poul Petersen's lab at Ruhr University, Germany, as a RESOLV and Alexander von Humboldt fellow to explore water structure and dynamics at zwitterionic polymer-water interfaces with surface-sensitive spectroscopies. 

At Dartmouth, Sneha lab will develop state-of-the-art ultrafast time-resolved vibrational, electronic, and sum frequency generation spectroscopies to unravel the mechanistic, kinetic, and dynamical details of photoinduced chemical reactions in solutions and at interfaces. One research direction in the lab will utilize transient vibrational and electronic spectroscopies to study photocatalyzed reactions in solutions initiated via energy and electron transfer pathways . The second area of research will explore the structure and dynamics of molecular systems at various interfaces, such as air-water and solid-liquid interfaces, using time and phase-resolved vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy. These studies covering ultrafast (100 fs) and slow (ms) time scales will allow direct observation of key reaction intermediates and quantify the role of kinetic, structural, and environmental parameters in controlling reaction outcomes.