
Frances Houle
CSD Senior Staff Scientist
Liquid Sunlight Alliance, Solar Photochemistry Program
Office Phone: (510) 604-8339
Cell Phone: (510) 604-8339
Office Location: 30-0212
Mailstop: 30R0205
Fax: (510) 495-8700
Dr. Houle's research program at LBNL is centered on stochastic simulations of transformations in complex condensed phase systems. The calculations are performed in close collaboration with experimentalists in order to discover predictive, physically based and validated mechanisms. She serves as Deputy Director of the Liquid Sunlight Alliance, where her research is on the stochastics of water chemistry in catalytic microenvironments and on the interfacial processes responsible for catalyst instabilities such as corrosion and electromigration. The goal of the work is to discover how infrequent processes might be involved in slow degradation of artificial photosynthesis systems. She also has expertise in transport through polymeric membranes used in artificial photosynthesis systems. In her Solar Photochemistry program, she is working on the coupling of dye excitations to molecular catalysis relevant to dye-sensitized water splitting systems. The computational code used in this work is Kinetiscope, coauthored by Dr. W.D. Hinsberg and Dr. Houle. It is an open access package available at www.hinsberg.net/kinetiscope. In addition to the computational work, she has actively collaborated on several solar fuels device and prospective lifecycle assessment projects.