CDAC graduate student Kathryn Brown, from the research group of Professor Dana Dlott at the University of Illinois, has recently been awarded an Agnew National Security Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out her postdoctoral research.

Kathryn’s PhD research involved two projects. She was the first to obtain Raman spectra of molecular monolayers under high pressure in a diamond-anvil cell, by developing tiny photonic sensors that amplify the monolayer spectra by factors of about 100,000. In addition she developed a laser-launched flyer plate system that propels metal foils at speeds up to 4.5 km/s, and used this method to study the emission from molecules in polymers and from impact-initiated energetic materials.

At Los Alamos, Kathryn will be continuing her work on ultrafast spectroscopy in collaboration with David Moore.