Our research group utilizes interdisciplinary approaches to produce novel materials that respond to their local environment. We combine fundamental knowledge in the fields of chemical engineering, materials science, and physics to understand and manipulate the structure and dynamics of a wide range of soft matter building blocks, including polymers, colloids, and liquid droplets. Our materials hold promise as targeted drug delivery vectors, as biomimetic scaffolds for cell and tissue culture, and as ultrasensitive detectors of environmental pollution.

Current Projects

Biomimetic Emulsions

We are generating fully synthetic analogues of biological tissues by exploiting the structure of emulsion droplets and the mechanics of polymer chains.

Physics of the Yield Transition

We are investigating how soft materials transition from solid-like to liquid-like behaviors under stress to better understand bioengineering scaffolds and processing conditions of complex fluids.

Polymer-Colloid Composites

We are developing structure-dynamic-property relationships to describe the complex behavior of polymer-colloid composites.