Abstract
Hierarchical Materials through 3D Printing and Molecular Design
Nature creates remarkable, sustainable material by controlling the hierarchical assembly of molecules that are broken down at the end of their useful life. Inspired by natural systems, my group’s research combines molecular design and materials characterization with directed assembly via extrusion-based 3D printing to program the structure and function of polymer-based materials across length scales. First, I will describe how in both liquid crystalline polymers and block copolymers we can control the extent of nanostructure alignment and functional anisotropy via the flow history the material undergoes during 3DP. By tailoring flow history and microstructural layout, we are able to encode ‘multiple properties’ in structures composed of a single material. I will also discuss our contributions to developing sequence-defined liquid crystalline oligomers that, as a function of molecular length and sequence, assemble into remarkable arrays of twisted and bent structures featuring the spontaneous emergence of chirality.
Bio
Emily joined Princeton University as an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering in January 2021. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2010 and her PhD working at UC Berkeley (PhD 2016) and UC Santa Barbara with Professor Rachel Segalman. In her PhD research, she studied the interplay of crystallization and self-assembly in conjugated block copolymers as well as the role of secondary chain shape in the assembly of sequence-defined block copolymers. She was a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Jennifer Lewis (Harvard) where she focused on the development and 3D assembly of liquid crystal elastomers with light-activated dynamic bonds. From 2010-2012, Emily taught high school chemistry and physics through the Teach for America program. Emily’s accomplishments have been recognized with a Scientista 'Young Professional' Award (2019), a DOE Early Career award (2022), and the Princeton School of Engineering Alfred Rheinstein Faculty Award (2023).