Dr. Madhavi Krishnan

Biography

Madhavi Krishnan is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford. She completed her undergraduate studies at Anna University, Madras, India, and obtained her PhD from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Krishnan has held prestigious Alexander von Humboldt and Marie Curie Fellowships, undertaking postdoctoral work in single molecule biophysics and nano-optics at the Technical University of Dresden and ETH Zurich. In 2012, she had a brief stint as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, after which she was appointed as an Assistant Professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Zurich, where she later received a Professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Her current research focuses on molecular electrostatics in fluid phases, integrating experimental and theoretical approaches. Her group has pioneered optical measurement techniques capable of reading molecular electrical charges with unprecedented precision and is exploring the use of single molecules as probes for highly accurate measurements of interaction potentials in solution.

Research Interests