Kate’s research goal is to design polymeric sensing materials to be used in transdermal ethanol sensors. This goal forms a set of operating specifications that pose certain constraints on the type of sensing materials used in such a sensor. The type of sensor used (resistive vs. capacitive vs. micro-cantilever) further reduces the number of potential sensing materials. Therefore, looking at the chemical nature of ethanol, and determining how ethanol is likely to interact with a sensing material, polymeric sensing materials can be chosen and tailored to detect ethanol. A polymeric sensing material may be tailored through changing its backbone, its sidechains and functional groups, and/or by adding dopants (metal oxides). Using this approach has allowed her to identify a multitude of good sensing materials for ethanol (e.g., polyaniline, poly (o-anisidine), etc.)