04/01/2026
⚡️ In honor of Women's History Month coming to an end, we're highlighting influential women in Nevada's chemistry department!
Last up: Dr. Ana de Bettencourt-Dias! 🥼
👀🔎 We asked Dr. Bettencourt-Dias some questions about her experience as a chemist and here are her answers:
Q: "What do you do for the department?"
A: "I am a professor of chemistry and do research in the coordination chemistry and spectroscopy of lanthanide ions (those elements at the bottom of the periodic table). I enjoy working with my research group in trying to come up with new molecules that emit light and that, through that light emission, allow us to image cells and report on the temperature and viscosity inside of those cells. This work could have potential implications in diagnosis and therapy of diseases. I am also the current department chair, and in that role I collaborate with my colleagues to advance the research and teaching mission of the department."
Q: "What do you love about chemistry?"
A: "Chemistry is a great subject, it allows me to understand how nature works, and it gives me the chance of working with chemicals that have all sorts of amazing colors. Moreover, I love the challenge of designing molecules to have specific properties, and then actually making those molecules and see them display the properties we hoped for. Or, when they don’t have those properties, to solve the puzzle as to why things did not work out as we had planned them."
We hope you had a wonderful Women's History Month wolfpack! Visit our page to see some more of our influential female scientists here in the chem department! 🐾🥽
