Making an outstanding contribution in her field

“I don’t like to be boxed in. I am very curious and want to try new things. I think that adventurous attitude partly accounts for this recognition.”

Dr. Stefania Impellizzeri is referring to the 2021 PCCP Emerging Investigator Lectureship Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry, which recognizes and supports emerging scientists who are making outstanding contributions to their field at an early stage of their career.

Impellizzeri joined Ryerson’s Department of Chemistry and Biology in 2018 and heads up the Impellizzeri Lab (external link) , which conducts research that pushes the boundaries of contemporary physical, organic and materials chemistry.

“I use tools not traditionally available to chemists that are popular with biologists,” she says. “Fluorescence spectroscopy is an example. It is a technology generally used in biology that I apply to the study of chemistry. That interdisciplinarity is a hallmark of my research.”

Impellizzeri’s career has moved between and merged three areas: physical chemistry (the physical principles underlying chemical reactions and properties), organic chemistry (which she calls “very rules-based”), and materials and nanomaterials chemistry (which is “more mutable and temperamental”). Combined, they provide new perspectives and research opportunities.

“I offer something at the interface between these three areas,” she says. “Science is moving toward more interdisciplinary approaches. I believe that the scientific community is going to solve some of our biggest challenges by overlapping and finding common ground. That kind of creativity generates new paradigms. That’s what excites me—connecting the dots and generating more opportunities and insights to meet those challenges.”

Impellizzeri collaborates with cell biologists, chemists and engineers to broaden her view and look at problems from different perspectives. This allows her work in materials and nanomaterials, for example, to move toward the goal of overcoming the diffraction limit of optical imaging systems like microscopes in order to record as much information as possible into the smallest spaces possible.

The better we can control individual molecules, she says, the greater the opportunity. The applications are wide-ranging, from reading how cancer cells communicate to the writing of data beyond current limits.

“As the amount of data we have access to goes up, information processing must get smaller,” she says. “The molecule is the new ‘bit,’ so controlling molecules with precision in space and time can potentially increase their performance. The next generation of devices will use molecules to record and transmit information.”

Impellizzeri’s exploratory nature and collaborative mindset make her an ideal recipient of the PCCP Emerging Investigator Lectureship Award, which recognizes excellence but also creativity and possibility.

“I’m honoured to receive this. It acknowledges not just what I am doing, but what I can do—the great potential in this kind of research. It’s gratifying to hear the Royal Society of Chemistry say, ‘We believe in you and we want to see more.’”