(7t) Molecular Understanding of Physical Phenomena in Soft Materials Design and Process Development

My group will harvest molecular-level knowledge of physical phenomena such as assembly, association, and interfacial non-bonded interactions, and utilize this knowledge to rationally design soft materials and develop processes. The long-term goal of my group is to create a transformative simulation-experiment framework that enables rapid materials design and process development. This framework will be built starting from three research projects: (1) designing zwitterionic polyelectrolyte systems for energy applications, (2) developing peptide coatings for nanomedical devices, and (3) predicting protein aggregation in biomanufacturing processes.

My PhD and postdoctoral research experiences equip me with the expertise to lead the research of my future group. My PhD research in Prof. Shaoyi Jiang’s group at the University of Washington focused on understanding and designing zwitterionic anti-biofouling materials. Biofouling is a universal problem and zwitterionic materials emerge as promising anti-biofouling candidates. We developed force field parameters for zwitterionic materials, investigated their hydration, self-association, protein interactions, and developed a framework for designing zwitterionic anti-biofouling materials. One of our computationally designs has been proven to resist biofouling in full blood by experiment.

My postdoctoral research in Prof. Carol Hall’s group at North Carolina State University focused on understanding mechanisms governing the formation of a corona of proteins around nanoparticles. The protein corona forms around nanoparticles when they enter the human body; it determines the functions of the nanoparticles. We probed the adsorption of amino acids on nanoparticles, developed a coarse-grained protein-nanoparticle model, explored adsorption isotherms of proteins on nanoparticles, and investigated allosteric effects of nanoparticles on the structure and dynamics of human serum albumin. We are also developing generalized models that correlate nanoparticle-protein interaction energy with protein properties.

Teaching Interests:

Teaching shapes the future of the world: delivering knowledge to and sharing experiences with the next generation are as important as discovering secrets in nature. My teaching philosophy can be summarized in four phrases: (1) active learning, (2) motivating student interest, (3) learning by doing, and (4) balancing the needs of individual students with the needs of the whole class.

I am fully committed to teaching and look forward to developing new courses, mentoring graduate students, and educating undergraduate students. I served as a teaching assistant for three undergraduate chemical engineering courses (Thermodynamics, Process Design, and Introduction to Molecular and Nanoscale Principles), and taught thermodynamics to undergraduate and graduate students. I am confident and happy to teach any chemical engineering course, particularly thermodynamics and modeling-related ones. I also plan to develop new courses that introduce how recent development of computational technologies can help shape chemical engineering at the undergraduate and graduate levels.