(6gz) Assembly Engineering for Bio-Inspired Nanomaterials

Research Interests: The objectives of my research program are to design of adaptive, programmable nanomaterials for medical diagnosis, drug delivery and renewable energy applications. Specifically, I am interested in exploring design rules for materials that resemble biological matter in that they are responsive to external stimuli in a controlled matter. The design rules I present here cover not only the geometry of assembling building blocks such as macromolecules and colloids and their anisotropic interactions systems, but also assembly pathways at equilibrium and away from equilibrium. The assembly processes may occur in bulk or at the interfaces or under an external field, and the interactions between the assembling building blocks involve multiple energy and length scales. To address the fundamental challenges with these bottom-up approaches, I am employing multiscale modeling and computer simulation and developing techniques that span multiple disciplines, ranging from GPU-accelerated simulation codes to enhanced sampling methods (such as flat-histogram and replica exchange) to data mining techniques. The outcomes of my research program would be qualitative and quantitative predictions including, but not limited to, optimal building blocks, efficient pathways towards desirable nanostructures, possible assembled morphologies and their physical properties, that facilitate experimental and theoretical investigations in the field.

Teaching Interests: I am interested in teaching Chemical Engineering core courses including Process Dynamics and Control, Thermodynamics and Transport, and developing my own courses on Polymer Physics, Intro to Machine Learning and Computational Nanoscience at graduate level. I would like to facilitate cooperative learning in classroom and incorporate practical aspects with fundamental problems into lecture materials. My objectives are to explain to the students why the coursework benefit them with their career and how they can succeed with the courses.