(14ae) Engineering Soft Materials with Tunable Structure and Functionalities

Soft materials encompass a wide range of materials, such as polymers, colloids, emulsions, gels and biological materials, whose properties arise from an interplay of processes across multiple scales. Conquering the major challenges, especially in food, pharmaceuticals and healthcare in the 21st century requires novel and smarter soft materials that can provide unprecedented properties and extraordinary functions, capable of exquisitely interfacing between engineering, chemistry, medicine and biology. The discovery and development of novel materials not only bring about new applications and improved performances, but also enable innovative approaches of material manufacturing in a sustainable way. My vision for this research direction is strongly motivated by the burgeoning need for better multi-scale understanding the structure - dynamic function relation of soft materials and also to develop novel processes for materials chemistry that enable production of such materials ranging in scale from nanocomposites to hierarchically structured polymer particles and gels.

As future faculty, my goal is to establish an independent research program that aims at designing and developing novel bottom-up approaches for soft materials with tunable architectures and functionalities. I will give emphasis on better understanding on how to precisely control the molecular transport in such materials and surface molecular interactions, besides the understanding their structure-function relation. I intend to leverage my diverse research expertise along with use of innovative approaches at the interface of chemical engineering, polymer and materials science, and emulsion and interface science. The research themes that I intend to pursue are, but not limited to: (i) Understanding and formation of novel structured emulsions with new and remarkable functionality; (ii) Development of nanostructured polymeric materials/ nanocomposites for the capture/separation of industrially, environmentally, and biologically relevant chemicals; (iii) Design and development of the next generation of intelligent hydrogel materials based- delivery devices for applications in (bio)pharmaceutics and healthcare. My poster will highlight the key aspects of some of my past and current research along with an outline of future projects in the above-mentioned platform.

Teaching Interests:

Aside from my research career, I have also substantial teaching experience. I was a Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), where I had the opportunity to teach one chemical engineering core module and several laboratory courses. At National University of Singapore (NUS), I worked as a tutor in particle technology course. I mentored many undergraduate and grduate students during my graduate studies and postdoc at NUS. Organizing tutoring and review sessions for the students gave me valuable teaching experience, as it was often then that the students asked the most penetrating and insightful questions. At MIT, I participated in â??Kaufman Teaching Certificate Programâ?? to further enhance my teaching skills. I believe that my academic experience at BUET, NUS and MIT has tremendously enriched my perspective, and I would like my students to benefit from it too.

I am well-equipped to teach the core-curriculum for chemical engineering, including separation science, particle technology, mass and heat transfer, process design, and reaction engineering.