Maya Pathuri

Short Biography

Pathuri received her B.S. degree in chemistry from UCLA in 2019. As an undergraduate, she conducted research in Professor Alexander Spokoyny’s laboratory on carborane-based RAFT initiators and room-temperature ionic liquids. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from Northwestern University in 2026 under the mentorship of Professors Bryan Hunter and Emily Weiss. Her doctoral research encompassed semiconductor quantum dot photocatalysis, the electronic structure of main-group coordination complexes, and laser-based synthesis of transition metal nitride nanomaterials.

Alongside her research in chemistry, Pathuri’s scholarly interests include chemistry education and the science of teaching and learning. Her education scholarship focuses on developing and evaluating interactive instructional resources and investigating how evidence-based instructional design can improve students’ conceptual understanding of challenging chemical concepts, particularly in inorganic chemistry. As a Teacher-Scholar, she looks forward to combining her interests in chemistry, education, and instructional design to improve undergraduate chemistry education.