Research in the McPeak Lab at Louisiana State University focuses on engineering optical materials and understanding their fundamental light-matter interactions. We work to apply these engineered metastructures to meet the environmental, biological and security challenges of the 21st century. We leverage fundamental chemical engineering principles buoyed by a deep understanding of materials science and nano-optics to tackle challenging problems. Our work has applications in diverse fields such as biosensing, water treatment, and photo-detection.