chemistry

Karen Faulds

Karen Faulds is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Karen Faulds rather than just read about it. In short: Karen Jane Faulds is a Scottish academic and professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Strathclyde. She develops surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for bioanalysis, and has won several awards for her research, including the Coblentz Society Craver Award.

Key takeaways

Karen Faulds belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Karen Faulds to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Karen Faulds from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Karen Jane Faulds is a Scottish academic and professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Strathclyde. She develops surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for bioanalysis, and has won several awards for her research, including the Coblentz Society Craver Award.

Early life and education Faulds studied forensic and analytical science at the University of Strathclyde, graduating with a BSc in 1998. She remained at Strathclyde for her doctoral studies and in 2003 received her PhD for research on the detection of drugs of substance abuse using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).

Career and research Faulds worked as a postdoctoral researcher for Duncan Graham on the detection of DNA using surface-enhanced resonant Raman spectroscopy (SERRS). She became increasingly interested in the use of analytical chemistry to improve people's lives. Faulds was appointed as a lecturer in 2006. Faulds was promoted to Reader in 2012 and Professor in 2015. Faulds works on the development of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for analytical detection. SERSs permits multiplexed and sensitive biological analysis. Her work uses signal amplification methods for the quantitative analysis of biomolecules, as the sensitivity allows her to detect target DNA and proteins. SERS also allows Faulds to make multiple measurements of different analytes in one sample. In 2015 she was the first woman and youngest person to ever be elected chair of the Infrared and Raman Discussion Group (IRDG). She has described C. V. Raman as her "hero of spectroscopy". Her recent work has looked at the optical detection of Listeria using bionanosensors. The bionanosensors permit the multiplexed detection of pathogens, which can remove the risk of infectious diseases without the need for antimicrobial drugs. She covers SERS active magnetic nanoparticles with lectins, which can recognise and bind to carbohydrates in bacteria. These nanoparticles can collect and concentrate bacteria from production lines. Silver nanoparticles are functionalised with a biorecognition molecule, such as an aptamer, and Raman reporter, resulting in a SERS signal when a nanoparticle binds to the bacterial target. The magnetic component can then be studied further using portable Raman spectrometers. Faulds is a founding member of Renishaw plc diagnostics, a University of Strathclyde spin-off company, and serves as its Director of Research. Faulds joined the editorial board of RSC Advances in November 2016 and as associate editor of Analyst in August 2020. She co-directs the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Optical Medical Imaging, shared between the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde.

Awards and honours 2009 Nexxus Young Life Scientist of the Year 2013 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Joseph Black Award 2016 Top 50 Women in Analytical Science 2016 Coblentz Society Craver Award 2017 The Analytical Scientist Top 10 Spectroscopists 2018 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) 2023 The Analytical Scientist the Power List - Connectors and Interdisciplinarians Faulds is a Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) and a member of the Young Academy of Scotland (YAS). In 2019 Faulds was included in the 2019 Power List of The Analytical Scientist.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Karen Faulds

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Karen Faulds claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Karen Faulds before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Karen Faulds ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Karen Faulds

In research: Karen Faulds appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Karen Faulds in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Karen Faulds is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Scottish chemists, 21st-century Scottish women scientists, Academics of the University of Strathclyde, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Karen Faulds outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Karen Faulds in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Karen Faulds means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Karen Faulds out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Karen Faulds in simple terms?

Why does Karen Faulds matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Karen Faulds?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Karen Faulds.