As a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Surface Chemistry at Simon Fraser University, Byron Gates built a research program to investigate the interface and surface chemistry of nanomaterials. His research program has sought to advance our knowledge of and ability to control these interfaces and to improve our understanding and control over nanomaterials for a variety of potential applications. Significant developments include the preparation of designer syntheses of nanoscale materials, delivery and release on command of small molecules from the surfaces of nanoparticles using the photothermal effect, and stabilization of materials through surface chemistry modifications. Dr. Gates has also demonstrated new technologies in materials design and fabrication through self-assembly (e.g., photonic bandgap materials and porous membranes with nanoscale features) and patterning materials through alternative lithographic approaches to existing technologies (e.g., establishing the limits of replicating nanoscale features by soft lithography).

Dr. Gates’ current efforts build upon and apply these technologies across many scientific disciplines. These efforts include the preparation of well-defined model catalyst supports including control over the separation between nanocatalysts achieved through self-assembly, enhancing the efficiency of water electrolysis through materials designs, controlling corrosion of electrocatalysts, on-demand delivery and release of therapeutics from nanomaterials for potential use in the management of cancer, harnessing the properties of nanomaterials to create new tools for applications in measurement science, developing techniques for tracking and cleaning up nanomaterials in various environments (including those native to industrial sites), and establishing the best practices for handling and otherwise working with nanomaterials.

Dr. Gates received his B.Sc. from Western Washington University, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington while working with Professor Younan Xia. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Professor George M. Whitesides, before joining the faculty at Simon Fraser University where he is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and the Head of the Centre for Soft Materials in 4D LABS.

Further information can be found here: http://www.sfu.ca/chemistry/gates/