Vanderbilt University Logo
Skip to main content

Recent News Category

Strong Locke Lab presence at SPIE Photonics West 2025

Feb. 10, 2025—At the recent SPIE Photonics West held at the end of January 2025, the Locke Lab had a strong presence with 4 oral presentations and 1 poster presentation. Graduate students Anna Rourke-Funderburg and Huijin ‘Ginny’ An presented updates to their PhD projects. Alec Walter, post-doctoral fellow, gave an oral presentation and poster presentation relating to...

Read more


Chemistry PhD students join Locke Lab

Feb. 10, 2025—After a semester of rotations, 3 new PhD students in the Chemistry department have joined the Locke lab. Kauryn Datcher, Darby Heffer, and Madison Walker join the lab to purse their PhDs under the direction of Dr. Locke.

Read more


Sophia & Kate present at VURF 2024

Feb. 10, 2025—On November 4, 2024, Locke lab undergraduate researchers Sophia Juarez and Kate Goncalves gave poster presentations to the Vanderbilt community at the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Fair (VURF) detailing their recent work in the Locke lab. Sophia gave an update on her work toward developing a paper-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrate for bacterial detection. Kate’s poster...

Read more


Dr. Locke attends SciX 2024

Feb. 10, 2025—At the recent SciX 2024 conference hosted in Raleigh, NC at the end of October 2024, Dr. Locke gave an update on the exciting work in the lab titled “Culture-free Detection of Bacteria in Biofluids” and hosted the Women in Analytical Science panel. For this panel, Dr. Locke organized a session including academics, instrumentation experts,...

Read more


Sophia Juarez attends BMES 2024

Feb. 10, 2025—Sophia Juarez, an undergraduate student in the Locke lab and SyBBURE Undergraduate Research Fellow, attended the annual BMES conference in October 2024 and presented her research titled “Design of a paper-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrate for bacteria detection in biofluid”.

Read more


Recent Publication Chosen for 2 Special Editions!

Sep. 4, 2024—A recent publication by PhD Candidate Anna Rourke-Funderburg was chosen for 2 special editions in Analyst. Anna’s article titled “Characterization of vaginal Lactobacillus in biologically relevant fluid using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy” was chosen as an Analyst HOT Article and selected for the 150th Anniversary Collection: Raman Spectroscopy and SERS. Read this new publication here: DOI: 10.1039/D4AN00854E

Read more


Anna Rourke-Funderburg attends ICORS 2024

Sep. 4, 2024—PhD candidate Anna recently attended the International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy (ICORS) in Rome, Italy, and presented an update on her project titled “Detection of vaginal Lactobacillus using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy”.

Read more


Congratulations to Jeremiah Johnson! First Place Poster Winner at the 20th LSAMP Conference

Mar. 22, 2023—Congratulations to Jeremiah Johnson on receiving first place for his poster at the 20th Annual Tennessee #LSAMP Undergraduate Research Conference.

Read more