| Tricia Carmichael | |
| Alma Mater: | University of Windsor (PhD) |
| Workplaces: | University of Windsor Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard University Thomas J. Watson Research Center |
| Thesis Title: | Studies of terminal phosphinidene complexes of zirconium |
| Thesis Year: | 1996 |
| Thesis Url: | http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/654163074 |
Tricia L. Carmichael (née Breen) is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Windsor. She develops new materials for stretchable electronics with a current focus on wearable electronic devices.
Carmichael was an undergraduate student at the University of Windsor, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Chemistry. She remained there for her graduate studies, where she worked on zirconium complexes. After graduating Carmichael was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1] In 1997 she joined the laboratory of George M. Whitesides at Harvard University, where she spent two years as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) research fellow. She studied charge transport through self-assembled monolayers, and showed that the injection current density was greater in n-alkanethiolates with odd numbers of carbon atoms.[2] She joined the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1999, where she worked in research and development. Here she specialised in synthesis and the development of low-cost patterning methods.
In 2005 Carmichael was appointed to the faculty at the University of Windsor, and promoted to Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2016.[3] Her research involves the development of novel materials and fabrication methods stretchable and wearable electronic devices.[4] [5] A challenge for the real-world implementation of these materials is how they will survive machine washing. She has investigated various means to generate conductive threads, including nick immersion gold plating and soft wax screening.[6] Each thread is bathed in a series of chemical washes and coated with a layer of gold only 100 nm thick, making the process cheap and scalable.[7] [8] In 2020 Carmichael demonstrated a stretchable, conformable light emitting fabric that could be used to replace high-visibility clothing.[9] The semi-transparent fabric contains nylon, spandex and gold, whilst the light-emission occurs from zinc sulfide.[10] [11]
In 2019 Carmichael and her colleague James Gauld coordinated the first LGBTQ+ in STEM conference in Canada.[12]
Her awards and honours include:
Carmichael serves on the Editorial Board of the Institute of Physics journal Flexible and Printed Electronics as Editor-in-Chief, and Cell Press' Chem.[17] [18] She holds more than two dozen patents for her innovations in materials synthesis and electronic device design.[19] She is also currently scientific co-Director of the NSERC Green Electronic Network.