Bright and his research associates have made significant contributions to biosensor development and supercritical fluid science and technology. The philosophy behind his work is that more accurate measurements and improved devices can best be made if one has an accurate molecular-level understanding of the system. Bright and his group focus on systems that are either heterogeneous and/or highly asymmetric.

Prof. Bright and his associates have developed a fully self-contained optical immunosensor and elucidated the interfacial dynamics of the anitbody-hapten combining site at a surface. His group was the first to successfully sequester an intact antibody within xerogels. They provided the first proof that proteins can exhibit significant sub-nanosecond dynamics within xerogels.

Prof. Bright and his coworkers have made important contributions to the understanding of solvation kinetics in supercritical fluids, diffusion-controlled reaction mechanisms in neat and co-solvent modified supercritical fluids, and the internal dynamics within reverse micelles formed in highly compressible fluids. In collaborative efforts, Bright and his associates were the first to form thermodynamically stable reverse micelles in supercritical carbon dioxide with water pools that are large enough to host and maintain proteins.

The Bright group has also developed an impressive battery of instruments for performing nanosecond and picosecond dynamic measurements within high-pressure/temperature environments, at interfaces, or at acquisition speeds rapid enough to allow one to track nanosecond and sub-nanosecond dynamics on-the-fly. Bright and his coworkers recently reported the first digital parallel multiharmonic frequency-domain fluorometer for rapidly measuring the excited-state decay kinetics which follow one-, two-, or three-photon excitation.

Bright received his B.S. degree from the University of Redlands in 1982 and a Ph.D. degree from Oklahoma State University in 1985. After postdoctoral studies at Indiana University, he joined the Department of Chemistry at SUNY-Buffalo in 1987 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to professor in 1994.

Among Bright's other awards are a 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award, the SUNY-Buffalo Award for Excellence in Teaching, and a SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is most proud of his record of educating students and postdoctoral fellows. In his career at Buffalo, he has graduated 19 Ph.D. and 4 M.A. research students.

Prof. Bright's work has been described in over 150 peer-reviewed papers, presented at over 100 Colleges and Universities, and summarized in over 300 scientific lectures in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Europe, and Asia.

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