Christine Luscombe

Christine Luscombe grew up in Kobe, Japan. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2000, she worked with Profs. Andrew Holmes and Wilhelm Huck in the Melville Laboratory of Polymer Synthesis at the University of Cambridge where her research focused on surface modifications using supercritical carbon dioxide for her PhD. She received the Syngenta Award for best organic chemistry project for her PhD. In January 2004, she joined the group of Prof. Jean Fréchet for her post-doctoral studies where she began her research on semiconducting polymers for organic photovoltaics. She was the recipient of the Lindemann Fellowship as well as the Trinity College Junior Research Fellowship (University of Cambridge) for her post-doctoral studies.

In September 2006, she joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. She received a number of young faculty awards including the NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, as well as the Sloan Research Fellowship. Her current research focuses on the synthesis of semiconducting polymers for organic electronics and has published >100 papers in this area of research. She is currently serving on the Editorial Advisory Boards for a number of journals including Polymer International, Advanced Electronic Materials, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Journal of Applied Physics, and Advanced Functional Materials. She is an Associate Editor for Macromolecules, is serving on the IUPAC Polymer Education and Polymer Terminology Subcommittees, and is the President of the IUPAC Polymer Division.

Select Publications (Refer to Google Scholar for complete publication list)

• Martinelli, J. C.; Phan, S.; Luscombe, C. K.; Padilla-Gamino, J. L "Low incidence of microplastic contaminants in Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas Thunberg) from the Salish Sea, USA" Sci. Total Environ., 2020, 715, 136826.
• Sommerville, P. J. W.; Li, Y.; Dong, B. X.; Zhang, Y.; Onorato, J. W.; Tatum, W. K.; Balzer, A. H.; Stingelin, N. S.; Patel, S. N.; Nealey, P. F.; Luscombe, C. K. "Elucidating the Influence of Side-Chain Circular Distribution on the Crack Onset Strain and Hole Mobility of Near-Amorphous Indacenodithiophene Copolymers" Macromolecules, 2020, 53, 7511-7518.
• Bischak, C. G.; Flagg, L. Q.; Yan, K.; Rehman, T.; Davies, D. W.; Quezada, R. J.; Onorato, J. W.; Luscombe, C. K.; Diao, Y.; Li, C.-Z.; Ginger, D. S. "A Reversible Structural Phase Transition by Electrochemically-Driven Ion Injection into a Conjugated Polymer" J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2020, 142, 7434-7442.
• Huang, Y.; Luscombe, C. K. "Towards green synthesis and processing of organic solar cells" The Chemical Record, 2019, 19, 1039
• Mazzio, K.; Luscombe, C. K. "The Future of Organic Photovoltaics" Chem. Soc. Rev., 2015, 44, 78.
• Okamoto, K.; Zhang, J.; Housekeeper, J.; Marder, S.; Luscombe, C. K. "C–H Arylation Reaction: Atom Efficient, and Greener Syntheses of π-conjugated Small- and Macromolecules for Organic Electronic Materials" Macromolecules, 2013, 46, 8059.
• Okamoto, K.; Luscombe, C. K. “Controlled polymerizations for the synthesis of semiconducting conjugated polymers” Polym. Chem. 2011, 2, 2424.
• Bronstein, H. A.; Luscombe, C. K. "Externally initiated regioregular P3HT with controlled molecular weight and narrow polydispersity." J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131, 12894.