The research areas in our department span from biological engineering to energy to functional materials.
Associated Faculty: Anseth, Bowman, Bryant, Cha, Goodwin, Hind, Kaar, Randolph, Schwartz, Shirts, Stansbury
- Materials that improve biocompatibility and functional performance.
- Polymers for drug delivery, in vivo imaging, and tissue engineering.
- Directing tissue growth for regenerating cartilage and cardiac muscle.
- Novel dental restorative materials.
- Engineering proteins for biomaterials and imaging applications.
- Dynamics of biomolecules at biomaterial interfaces.
Associated Faculty: Chatterjee, Davis, Fox, Goodwin, Hind, Kaar, Randolph, Schwartz, Shields, Shirts, Sprenger, Whitehead
- Sustainable biorefining of fuels, commodity chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
- Stabilization and formulation of therapeutic proteins and vaccines.
- Improving bioreactor performance.
- Novel antimicrobials.
- Computational studies of biomolecules.
Associated Faculty: Cha, Holewinski, Medlin, Musgrave, Schwartz, Smith, Weimer
- Improved chemical reactions for renewable and sustainable energy.
- Novel biomimetic heterogeneous catalysts.
- New catalysis using atomic layer deposition (ALD).
- Enzymatic catalysis in novel solvent environments.
- Electrocatalysis for sustainable chemical and fuel production.
- Quantum simulations of electrochemical, electrocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic systems.
Associated Faculty: Chatterjee, Davis, Heinz, Hrenya, Medlin, Musgrave, Shirts, Smith, Sprenger
- Mathematical modeling of cellular processes for biomedical applications.
- Dynamics and interactions of particles or droplets.
- Multiscale modeling of polymers, nanomaterials, and biomolecules.
- Simulating materials for catalysis, microelectronics, data storage and biomaterials.
- Quantum simulations to discover and design materials for the conversion and storage of energy.
- Machine learning to discover new high performance molecules and materials.
Associated Faculty: Cha, Chatterjee, Davis, Fox, Goodwin, Gupta, Hayward, Heinz, Holewinski, Hrenya, Marder, McGehee, Medlin, Musgrave, Nagpal, Schwartz, Smith, Toney, Weimer
- Genome-engineering to improve cellulosic biofuels production.
- Designing new catalysts and electrocatalysts for selective conversions in renewable and sustainable energy applications.
- Utilizing enzymes in ionic liquids to convert biomass to biofuels.
- Quantum simulations to discover and design materials for the conversion and storage of energy.
- Thin film materials and membranes to obtain high-purity hydrogen for fuel cells.
- Design of solar cells and solar-thermal chemical reactors/receivers to produce high purity hydrogen.
Associated Faculty: Davis, Gupta, Hrenya, Shields, Weimer
- Characterizing flow behavior of particulate matter including granular flows, gas-particle fluidization, and aerosol dynamics.
- Microphysical studies of fundamental interactions.
- Macrophysical studies of suspensions, sedimentation, filtration, aggregation, coalescence, flotation, and phase separation.
Associated Faculty: Bowman, Cha, Goodwin, Gupta, Hayward, Heinz, Kaar, Marder, Medlin, Musgrave, Nagpal, Randolph, Schwartz, Shields, Smith, Sprenger, White
- Directing proteins and polymer surfaces at interfaces to develop novel functional biomaterials.
- Improving reactions at solid surfaces for energy applications.
- Smart colloids that sense and react to their surroundings.
- Directed self-assembly of polymeric films into useful, device-oriented structures.
- Effects of chemical stimuli and external forces on interfacial organization.
- Quantum mechanical modeling of electrified interfaces.
Associated Faculty: Davis, Medlin, Schwartz, Shirts, Toney
- Inorganic membranes such as zeolites for gas and liquid separations.
- Molecular layer deposition (MLD) for membrane preparation.
- Room-temperature ionic liquids-based materials and films.
- Electric or light energy for increased selectivity in micro-scale devices.
- Polymer membranes.
Associated Faculty: Bowman, Cha, Goodwin, Hayward, Heinz, Holewinski, Marder, Medlin, Musgrave, Nagpal, Schwartz, Shields, Smith, Weimer, White
- Nanoparticle thin film device fabrication and modeling.
- New room-temperature ionic liquids-based materials and polyelectrolyte architectures.
- Synthesizing well-defined organic-inorganic systems from nanoscale building blocks.
- Improved microfluidic devices using photopolymerizations.
- Designing and fabricating nanostructured materials using top-down and bottom-up techniques.
Associated Faculty: Anseth, Bowman, Bryant, Goodwin, Gupta, Hayward, Heinz, Marder, Musgrave, Randolph, Shields, Shirts, Sprenger, Stansbury, Toney, White
- Novel monomers and photopolymerization mechanisms.
- Dental restorative materials with minimal shrinkage.
- Polymers for drug delivery, in vivo imaging, tissue engineering, labs-on-a-chip, adhesives, coatings, lithography, microelectronics, and LCDs.
- Computer simulations to study material behavior.
- Computational design and discovery of polymerization photoinitiators.
Associated Faculty: Chatterjee, Fox, Kaar, Randolph, Sprenger, Whitehead
- Genome-engineering for biofuels, pharmaceutical, and gene therapy applications.
- Rationalizing relationships between genome structure and function.
- Synthesizing protein-containing structures.
- Therapeutic protein stability, degradation, and contamination studies.
- Modular synthetic genetic devices that can achieve higher-order biological computation.