Education
Dr. Duffy earned a B.A. degree in Chemistry from Boston University in 1988, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995 (mentor: Prof. Tomas Baer), and was a National Research Council – Research Associate in the Physics Department at Duke University for 1996-99 under the direction Dr. David Skatrud.
Research
My research group has both basic and applied experimental research projects. On the basic research side we are involved in discovery based science. We design, simulate, build and test instruments that have unique abilities to probe the underlying quantum mechanical dynamics of gas phase chemical reactions, a field known as Molecular Reaction Dynamics.
Our particular focus is on using high frequency microwaves to probe the rotational transitions of product molecules. On the more applied side, we are attempting to create a mass spectrometer-like instrument that will, among other things, identify and separate molecular isomers by the strength of their dipole moments.
Our dream is to create the next indispensable analytical instrument, where in addition to identifying isomers it will yield invaluable molecular shape information through dipole moment measurements which are sensitive to subtle conformational changes.
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