Education
Mike Reppert, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University, researches biophysics and spectroscopy with a focus on photosynthesis to better understand green plants, algae and cyanobacteria. Reppert’s group is interested in how sunlight interacts with chlorophyll pigments in photosynthetic proteins. Visible light includes the wavelengths of sunlight that plants and cyanobacteria use to produce chemical energy. By knowing how natural photosynthetic systems work, Reppert is hoping to learn how to design new systems that can be used to produce biofuels more efficiently. Reppert’s group is involved with molecular biophysics where physical principles are studied to understand how molecules interact with one another. Through studying molecular interactions at the biophysical level, Reppert is hoping to show improvement in light-harvesting from the photosynthetic organisms studied by his group. Reppert touches on the topic of ethics associated with bioengineering. Mike Reppert’s group website: https://mreppert.github.io/ ACS Project SEED: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/highschool/seed/apply.html