Surface chemistry for biological questions
Rasmita Raval discusses her career exploring the complex behaviour of molecule–surface systems and what it has to do with antibiotic resistance and the origin of life
Even as an undergraduate, Rasmita Raval was fascinated by the interactions between electromagnetic radiation and matter and how these can be used to probe the molecular structures of things. It was this that took her to the University of East Anglia to study for a PhD in surface science, supervised by expert spectroscopists Norman Sheppard and Mike Chesters. And as PhDs go, hers was an exceptionally successful one: few doctoral candidates can claim, as she could, to have developed the methodology for a new technique.