(2ed) Multiscale Engineering of Multiphasic Polymer Composites for Soft Electronics and Robotics

Research Interests

My research seeks to investigate and engineer thin films and composites of polymers; it will have impacts within chemical engineering, material science, and across fields such as healthcare, robotics, and sustainable energy. Overall, my work will have three objectives:

1. The elucidation of structure-property relationships in soft electronic polymers and composites by combining experimental characterization and large-scale computer simulations.

2. The investigation and development of methods for processing and patterning these materials; and

3. The design of devices for sensing and actuating applications in healthcare and robotics.

Polymers have a broad range of useful thermomechanical, optoelectronic, and processing characteristics. Their macromolecular nature imparts them with unique material properties that are tunable by chemistry and processing, but also with complex hierarchical interrelationships between molecular structure, chain conformation, packing, phase behavior and continuum-scale performance in functional device operation. Thermoplastic elastomeric materials comprising dynamic polymer networks embedded with functional inorganic nano/micro materials, as well as microphase separated blends with semiconducting polymers, have great potential for engineering the interface between ‘soft’ materials of biology and ‘hard’ materials of conventional electronic devices. The design, processing, and optimization of patterned multilayer laminates of functional polymers and composites requires detailed knowledge of physicochemical phenomena from the molecular to the continuum scale. My research combines computer simulations and experiments to elucidate structure-processing-property relationships of polymer composites at interfaces and leverages such understanding to design processing strategies and soft electronics and robotics. As an Assistant Professor, I will focus on three main research areas:

1. Molecular design of multiphasic sets of immiscible but adhesive dynamic polymer networks and their patterned laminate composites for damage-sensing, self-healing surgical simulation models.

2. Molecular design of multiphasic blends of semiconducting polymers and thermoplastic elastomers for the development of stretchable organic solar cells and other organic electronic devices.

3. Investigation of a processing method for laminated thin films (<100 nm) of these polymers and composites using the interfacial spreading of polymer solutions and suspensions at the surface of water.

Teaching Interests

During my training, I have served as a teaching assistant in four courses at the University of Rochester, the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. At the graduate level, I have assisted in teaching partial differential equations and intermolecular & surface forces. At the undergraduate level (upper division), I have assisted in teaching polymeric materials (x2 quarters) and statistical thermodynamics. My responsibilities for these courses included developing new class materials and exam questions; leading class discussions; grading assignments and exams; meeting with students individually; and giving guest lectures. These courses had sizes ranging from 30 – 120 students. Moreover, while at Harvard University, I have served as the primary adviser on two engineering senior thesis projects.

Given these experiences and my training in interdisciplinary chemical/materials engineering research, I am prepared to teach a broad range of core undergraduate and graduate engineering courses, including but not limited to thermodynamics, transport phenomena, chemical kinetics, polymer engineering, soft matter, and interfacial phenomena. Moreover, I would welcome the opportunity to teach more advanced courses on statistical thermodynamics and molecular simulation methods using modern parallel computing technology. Throughout the course of my computational research, I have gained expertise in coding with a variety of programming languages including Python, Matlab, and C++, as well as physical computing systems like Arduino and RaspberryPi for sensing, actuation, and control. I will endeavor to incorporate elements of algorithmic problem-solving, numerical methods, statistical analysis, as well as principles of modern data science and machine learning in in any of the upper division courses that I teach, as there is no doubt that these skills are in high demand for graduating engineering students.

The optimal outcome of my classes will be for students to obtain the foundation for expert-level competence in the subject. Such competency will include not only factual knowledge, but also technical reading/writing literacy and effective problem-solving skills such as breaking problems up into smaller sub-problems, deciding what information is relevant/irrelevant, and making appropriate approximations. In addition to providing such foundational expertise, I will allude to more advanced topics and provide students with optional resources and references to stimulate their curiosity and deepen their expertise in the subject.