Sherine Obare

Sherine O. Obare is the dean of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She works on nanomaterials for sensing and drug delivery.

Early life and education Obare spent her childhood in Germany, where she attended a British high school. She studied chemistry, mathematics and physics. She applied for a job at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, but was convinced by her professor to she would enjoy graduate school. With Murphy, Obare developed a new approach to fabricate polystyrene and silica coated gold nanorods as templates for hollow nanotubes. Hollow nanotubes are useful for drug delivery, cell and enzyme transplantation, removal of contaminated waste and gene therapy. She demonstrated that gold nanoparticles functionalised with 1,10-phenanthroline could be used to sense lithium ions in solution. The ligands of 1,10-phenanthroline bind to the lithium ions, forming a complex that causes the nanoparticles to aggregate. The nanorods can form liquid crystalline phases. Obare was a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation fellow at Johns Hopkins University working under the supervision of Gerald Meyer. She investigated fluorescent chemosensors to monitor for organophosphorous. Organophosphorous can inhibit cholinesterase and can have severe environmental and health impacts. Obare was awarded an National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2006. This allowed her to develop multi-electron transfer catalysts. She demonstrated that organohalides degrade via multi-electron pathways. She has explored new techniques to synthesise and characterise monodisperse nanoparticles. The nanoparticles can be used to detect bacteria in waterborne diseases. From 2017 Obare served as Associate Vice President for Research at Western Michigan University.

Obare is an associate editor for the Journal of Nanomaterials.

Awards and honours 2006 National Science Foundation CAREER Award 2009 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Young Observer Award 2010 NOBCChE Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Scientist Award 2010 Science Spectrum Magazine Trailblazer Award