The Abbaspourrad group investigates bio-derived soft materials to address challenges associated with the food-environment-health nexus. The team’s current research projects include bioinspired membranes and foam for oil/water separation, high internal phase emulsion for nutrient delivery, encapsulation, clean label and ingredient modification, surface chemistry and modification, biosensors, gut on a chip, and in-vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection on a chip.

The Abbott group investigates complex fluids and interfacial phenomena with the goal of establishing new principles for spatial and temporal control of soft materials. The goal of the group’s research is to enable the design of next-generation materials for monitoring human exposure to chemical environments, precision medicine, food safety, energy-efficient separations processes, and self-regulating autonomous micromachines.

The Alabi group investigates using synthetic and analytical tools to further understand and engineer precise functional macromolecular therapeutics. Sequence-defined oligomers are at the center of the group’s studies, in which they investigate molecular and macromolecular properties to utilize the oligomers in biomolecular applications. Their research goals include the discovery and use of new oligomers to quantitate biological processes, develop efficient drug delivery bioconjugates, and discover potent antimicrobial macromolecules.

The Archer group’s investigations focus on the fundamental behavior of nanoscale materials and their applications to electrochemical energy storage. The group’s research extensively studies Nanoscale Organic Hybrid Materials (NOHMs), which behave according to the specific polymer and nanoparticle core attached together. NOHMs are effective electrolytes for batteries when ionic polymers are used. The group’s areas of research include NOHMs, lithium metal batteries and metal electrodeposition, and metal-air batteries and carbon capture.

The Chen group investigates the development and application of state-of-the-art single-molecule methods to characterize and understand the properties of nanoscale materials and biological systems. The single-molecule techniques remove ensemble averaging and include single-molecule fluorescence imaging, single-molecule FRET, single-molecule tracking, super-resolution localization microscopy, and magnetic tweezers. Current research directions include single-molecule catalysis, single-molecule bioinorganic/biophysical chemistry, and method development.

The Coates group focuses on the development of new synthetic strategies for producing polymers of defined structure. The group’s research addresses the interface of organic, inorganic, organometallic, and polymer chemistry through research topics such as enantioselective epoxidation polymerization, carbonylation, biodegradable polymers, polyolefins, and energy applications. The group aims to control polymer composition to allow for indirect control of polymer properties via polymer morphology.

The Cohen group investigates matter in motion through six areas of research: complex fluids, mechanics of biological tissues, biolocomotion, origami mechanical metamaterials, microscopic robots, and magnetic handshake materials. These projects explore strain, stress, and motion within varying fluids and materials for application-based research. The team also integrates microelectronics and micromachinery into material design.

The Daniel group is working to understand cell membrane functions and cellular processes through creating new biotechnologies. The team conducts cell-free studies of membrane functions and biological processes by pioneering the use of biomembrane microfluidics. This platform for membrane studies allowed the group to study membrane biophysics and biochemistry, host-pathogen interactions, cellular processes on a chip, bioelectronic biomembrane devices, and interfacial engineering and wetting.

The Dshemuchadse group uses computer simulations to study the self-assembly and stability of complex crystal structures. The team’s work focuses on three areas: soft matter self-assembly simulations, complex crystal structures, and intermetallic compounds. The research focuses on investigating materials structure and behavior.

The Escobedo group’s investigations use novel methodologies for the simulation of both thermodynamic data and kinetic information from molecular-level models of complex materials. The goal of such research is to improve the engineering of micro-structured materials via self-assembly and directed assembly. The group largely focuses on elucidating the importance of entropy as a force that can be harnessed to help create materials with desirable properties. This research has applications in solar cells, battery electrodes, membranes for ultra-filtration, light amplifiers and optic guides for lasers, liquid armor, plastics of high elasticity and toughness, and new therapeutic antibodies.

The Estroff group focuses on bio-inspired materials synthesis. The group combines two approaches to creating new materials: design in vitro systems and synthesis of composite inorganic minerals within organic matrices. These approaches can answer questions and explore strategies to create inorganic and organic materials with altered morphologies and materials properties.

The Frazier group works in operations research and machine learning in various applications. These applications include COVID-19 modeling, Bayesian optimization, simulation, multi-armed bandits and incentive design for social learning, and materials design, biochemistry, drug discovery and medicine.

The Hormozi group’s investigations focus on soft matter physics and understanding real-world transport and fluid mechanics problems through a mechanistic lens. Their work involves large core computations, advanced lab-scale experiments, and applied mathematical techniques to approach three areas of research: advanced materials, bioengineering, and clean energy. The group explores systematic engineering of multifunctional soft matter,  bacteria motility within varying environments, and methods of geothermal heating. The group has also contributed to better integrating the fields of colloidal science and non-Brownian suspensions.

The Jiang group investigates the design and synthesis of monomers, polymers, polypeptides, and fusion proteins and the integration of immunology to understand the immune system’s response to nanomaterials. These studies translate into the development of highly biocompatible materials and various viral and non-viral carriers. With these core technologies, the group focuses on cancer prevent/ treatment vaccines, cancer immunotherapy, controlled cultures of stem cells and organoids, and medical devices.

The Koch group investigates applications of rheology and average transport processes in varying fluids and particle suspensions. The group’s research explores porous media, micro- and nano-structured materials, and the behavior of gas flows, reactions, swimming micro-organisms, and convective heat and mass transfer in particulate systems. The group has also studied geological applications of fluid flow through the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide and geothermal energy extraction.

The Li group’s work aims to develop metabolic engineering and synthetic biology platforms that enable the systematic discovery and production of plant natural products and their derivatives. The group’s work focuses on understanding how nature achieves complex compound biosynthesis and overcoming difficulties in biosynthetic pathway prediction and engineering to accelerate the discovery and manufacturing of plant natural products.

The Ober group’s research focuses on creating and refining new polymeric materials and their properties. The group works to fundamentally understand these novel materials’ physical behaviors and to apply them in various areas. These application areas include lithography, biointerfaces, and flexible electronics. The Ober group uses tools such as self-assembly and directed assembly in their investigations.

The Paszek group investigates the function of biophysical sugars, the glycocalyx, in reprogramming and manipulating cancerous cells back to a normal state through engineered sugar production and organization. The group focuses on the development of genetic tools, imaging approaches, and conceptual frameworks to explore the early stages of biophysical glycoscience and glycoengineering for medicinal and therapeutic applications. The group applies principles of glycoscience, materials science, and synthetic biology in approaching biomolecular engineering problems.

The Shepherd group investigates using organic chemistry of soft material composites for new capabilities in robots and redefining how people view robots and their potential uses. Areas of research include wearable robots, bio-inspired robots, and advanced manufacturing. A key application of these soft robots is in patient care and rehabilitation where distributed sensing, actuation, and power can be applied to provide greater independence, dignity, and outcomes for those with a variety of medical conditions.

The Silberstein group investigates establishing nano to millimeter-scale structure-function relations to drive materials innovations. The group focuses on four areas of research: polymers, mechanochemistry, material design, and continuum mechanics. The team explores creating new materials and models to predict material behavior

The Stroock group investigates physio-chemical and dynamical properties of fluids and living tissues through microengineering. The group has main topics of research: synthetic trees, microvascular biomaterials, microfluidic transport phenomena, customized colloidal hydrodynamics and assembly, and transport processes in the geological sub-surface.

The Tian group specializes in computational modeling and experimental characterization of energy transport. The group’s research focuses on thermal photons and their interactions with other energy carriers, such as electrons, photons, and magnons. Through advancing the fundamental understanding of nanoscale transport and energy conversion, the lab’s work applies to a range of industries; including renewable energy conversion, microelectronics cooling, space and building technologies, additive manufacturing, biomedical engineering, and quantum computing.

The Wiesner group is to use knowledge about the self-assembly of soft polymeric materials and the functionality of solid-state materials to generate novel hierarchical and multifunctional hybrid materials. The group’s studies have led to the conclusion that sequence information of higher-order blocked synthetic macromolecular architectures may be used to encode information about the hierarchical structure of co-assemblies with ceramic or other materials. These principles allow the design of new classes of functional materials with various potential applications.

The Yang group investigates the design and safe use of synthetic materials for biological applications. By designing material synthesis platforms, the group investigates controlling surface properties on a molecular-level, dynamic physicochemical interactions, and kinetic and thermodynamic exchanges at biointerfaces. By steering these interactions, the group develops material-based solutions for healthcare and sustainability.

The You group investigates smart manufacturing, digital agriculture, quantum computing, energy systems, and sustainability by focusing on advanced computational models, optimizing algorithms, statistical machine learning methods, and multi-scale systems and data analytics tools. Their work at the Process- Energy- Environmental Systems Engineering (PEESE) lab balances computation and data science with theory and real-world applications in energy and sustainability.

The Yu group investigates plasmonic and semiconductor materials and the development of devices for biosensing and optoelectronic applications. Integrating computational and experimental techniques, the team’s work aims to design plasmonic nanostructures and synthesize conducting polymers to develop detection systems and remote sensing. Focusing on new emerging materials, the team designs photodetector device structures and a variety of nanofabrication techniques to incorporate nanostructures into both biosensors and optoelectronics.