Polymer Chemistry Blog

Hossein Roghani-Mamaqani received his BSc and MSc degrees in polymer engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT). He was awarded the outstanding MSc researcher prize by AUT in 2009. He completed his PhD course in 2013 at AUT and has been honored as a highly intelligent student in his MSc and PhD courses by AUT talented student association. He was selected as recognized PhD student by National Elite Foundation in 2011-2013 and also Iran’s recognized PhD student by ministry of science in 2013. He worked in Petrochemical Research and Technology Company as a researcher from 2007 to 2009. He also worked as a researcher in Research Institute of Petroleum Industry from 2009 to 2013. He joined Sahand University of Technology (SUT) as an assistant professor in 2013. He was nominated as the recognized young assistant professor by National Elite Foundation in 2013. He was selected as the recognized researcher at Polymer Engineering Department of SUT in 2015, 2018, and 2021 and also as the recognized researcher at SUT in 2019-2021. He was selected as the recognized researcher at East Azarbaijan province in 2020 and recognized Elite Scientist by Iran Science Elites Federation in 2021. He was also selected as the outstanding young researcher in chemical engineering by Iran Academy of Sciences in 2022. Currently, he is a professor of polymer engineering at SUT. His research interest is in the area of polymer chemistry, controlled radical polymerization, surface modification reactions, polymer colloids, hydrogels, optical sensors, and also smart polymers.

Read Hossein’s Emerging Investigator review article,‘Water treatment using stimuli-responsive polymers’

Check out our interview with Hossein below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the leading journals in the field of polymer design, synthesis, and applications. Professional editorial board, timely reviewing and publication, interesting scope with emphasis on the new polymerization methods, and publication of high-quality articles make this journal totally fitted to my interests. By taking my research field into consideration, Polymer Chemistry is a right place to publish new results in the synthesis and applications of colloidal polymers, living polymers with well-defined structures, and smart polymers.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

The structure and property relationship in polymers can be manipulated by the polymerization methods. My group is able to synthesize well-defined polymer structures, surface-grafted polymers, and colloidal polymers with tailored characteristics. For instance, in the design and synthesis of smart photo-responsive polymers, polymer structure can affect optical properties of the final products, which has applications in anticounterfeiting systems, sensors, smart coatings, smart membranes, etc. Photochromic and fluorescent polymers with the ability of color changing and light emission in response to different stimuli are among the most exciting smart polymers.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

How can we inspire from nature to design polymers with smart characteristics? For example, chameleons display a wide range of body color in response to variations of the environmental conditions. It has been a significant challenge to design and fabricate such systems, with the ability of reversible and fast color change. The other example is self-cleaning ability of the plant leaves, flowers, butterfly, etc. which is used in the preparation of self-cleaning coatings. It has been a significant challenge to design such systems, with the ability of complete cleaning of different impurities.

How can we use the smart characteristics of polymers in our daily life? Smart polymers can be used in lots of innovative applications, which are shape-memory, self-reporting, self-cleaning, and self-healing polymers, smart coatings, smart windows, spoilage indicators of food materials, anticounterfeiting systems, sensors and indicators, etc. which have been investigated in our recent studies.

Read Julieta’s Open Access Emerging Investigator article, ‘Redox-triggerable firefly luciferin-bioinspired hydrogels as injectable and cell-encapsulating matrices’

Check out our interview with Julieta below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is a top reputed journal in the field, and represents a paramount home for discussion of the state-of-the-art. I feel delighted to contribute whenever is possible!

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am thrilled about the transversal nature of my research. My work combines tools from synthetic organic and polymer chemistry, biomaterials science, and cell biology; to engineer smart soft materials that interacts with living cells and tissues. One research line in my lab is the development of responsive hydrogels for cell encapsulation. These artificial models can be used to study the complex communication between cells and between cells and their native microenvironment. The biggest challenge is that the native cell niche is very dynamic, therefore, capturing such features in a synthetic material is complex but fascinating at the same time.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

We want to better understand how cells communicate with themselves and with their environment, so we can develop novel approaches in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this regard, engineered materials whose properties can be regulated on demand can help us to investigate those type of questions. I am particularly interested in the possibility of controlling matrix viscoelasticity on demand to steer cell behavior. Thereby, I believe that the polymer chemistry field has much to offer by providing inspiration towards novel mechanoresponsive polymeric tools upon which smart biomaterials can be built.

4. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I would encourage young researchers to get involved into (and, eventually, to create their own) diverse scientific teams. I have enjoyed very much my journey so far, since it allowed me to be surrounded and get inspired by researchers from diverse disciplines, career stage, geographical background and way of thinking. This multidisciplinary and multicultural ingredient of a scientific team, which has greatly impacted my career, is in my view what makes science very creative, rewarding and fun.

Quentin Michaudel grew up in La Rochelle, France. He received his B.Sc. (2008) and M.Sc. (2010) from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. He earned his Ph.D. (2015) with Professor Phil S. Baran at The Scripps Research Institute, where he explored C–H functionalization methods and their applications to the synthesis of complex molecules. Quentin then accepted a postdoctoral position at Cornell University, where he developed photocontrolled polymerizations with Professor Brett P. Fors. In 2018, Quentin started his independent career as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. His research group focuses on the development of synthetic methods and new organic materials. Quentin is the recipient of the 2022 ACS PMSE Young Investigator Award; the 2022 ACS Organic Division Academic Young Investigator’s Symposium; and the 2021 Thieme Chemistry Journals Award. You can follow Quentin and his lab on Twitter @q_michaudel and @MichaudelLab

Read Quentin’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Expedient synthesis and ring-opening metathesis polymerization of pyridinonorbornenes’

Check out our interview with Quentin below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is a great venue for synthetic studies focused on new polymeric architectures, as well as for reports of polymerizations relying on catalytic processes. It is a great place for the polymer community to share impactful results.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am very excited about my group’s ability to precisely synthesize polymers with high structural complexity and tailored properties. Our research requires the often-difficult characterization of novel polymers, as well as the investigation of intricate reaction mechanisms, but that challenge is exciting and motivates us to push the boundaries of the field.

Read Zachary’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Donor modification of thermally activated delayed fluorescence photosensitizers for organocatalyzed atom transfer radical polymerization’

Check out our interview with Zachary below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is the perfect place to read about innovative techniques in polymer synthesis, and we’re excited to contribute an article with a photophysical twist.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I’m very excited about our work on luminescent polymer dots, or Pdots – nanoparticles that can be bright enough to be detected with a handheld smartphone camera. We’re collaborating with my colleague Russ Algar at UBC to develop nanoparticles for biosensing using smartphones, and translating this to technology that could be used in a healthcare setting represents a major exciting challenge.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

Our current featured article uses organic photosensitizers as catalysts for controlled radical polymerization. In this space, we need to develop highly photostable sensitizers that can perform using visible light irradiation. This is a major challenge, because accessing suitably high-energy excited states using visible light is itself a contradictory requirement.

4. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I’m a big fan of ‘white space’ in my calendar – time in which nothing is booked, so I have the space to just read or think. The hectic lifestyle of early-career academia combined with our always-connected culture makes it hard to find time to just think about science – schedule it if you have to!

Myungwoong Kim received his B.S. in Chemistry (2002) and M.S. in Physical Chemistry (2004) from Hanyang University under supervision of Prof. Daewon Sohn, then worked for several years in photopatterning materials industry. He completed his Ph.D. in Materials Science (2013) at University of Wisconsin – Madison under supervision of Prof. Padma Gopalan. He then conducted his postdoctoral research in Prof. Christopher K. Ober’s group at Cornell University. In 2015, he joined the Department of Chemistry at Inha University to begin his independent research career. His current research interests include precision polymer synthesis for desired structures and properties, surface and interface engineering, polymeric material designs for micro/nanofabrications, for functional gels, and for understanding polymer dynamics.

Read Myungwoong’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Comprehensive studies of continuous flow reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer copolymerization and its application for photoimaging materials’

Check out our interview with Myungwoong below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

I have enjoyed reading the articles in Polymer Chemistry. I have been impressed by the journal scope, especially respecting and embracing conventional, but fundamental and significant polymer chemistry topics, for example, polymerization kinetics and photopolymer chemistry. However, the journal has also been enthusiastic to publish high quality articles dealing with cutting edge topics. This unique balancing makes me keep following every day and considering Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

For the patterns in single-digit nanometer dimension, the size becomes equivalent to less than ten copolymer chains. In this limit, the homogeneity of the copolymer system gets important to improve the pattern quality, such as line edge roughness. The continuous flow process shown in our work can address this issue; however, it also gave us an important message: the compositional drift due to unequal reactivity between monomers results in an intrinsic compositional inhomogeneity in copolymer samples. This is further related to the fundamental challenging question: “can we precisely control the structure and composition of complex polymers?”.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

How do we precisely control compositional and structural parameters of polymers, for example, sequence, desired chemical functionalities, molecular weight, and its distribution, while the high complexity is attained? Can we produce this elegantly shaped polymer in a large quantity? How are the parameters correlated with the resulting properties, for example, the position of developable unit in the chain vs. the quality of photopattern? Can we expand these challenges to more complex polymeric systems such as crosslinked polymer networks and polymer thin films?

4. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

We all experience failure. No one can become always successful. This should be the case especially for early career scientists including me. I have thought of an inspirational quote that was personally given to me by Prof. Hyuk Yu, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at University of Wisconsin at Madison, and now I am so happy to share this with other early career polymer scientists: “Life and hope are viscoelastic. Failure should take time to restore, but never yield to or break by it. Bend and recover!!!”. This may be the advice given to us by polymer, our lifelong friend, as well.

Athina Anastasaki was born and raised in Athens, Greece and obtained her B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Athens. She then commenced her PhD studies at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Prof. Dave Haddleton and graduated in late 2014 with the Jon Weaver award for the best PhD in polymer chemistry in the UK. In early 2015, she accepted a Monash-Warwick research fellow position between the Pharmaceutical department at Monash University and the University of Warwick, jointly supervised by Prof. Thomas Davis and Prof. Dave Haddleton. She then received an Elings Fellowship, followed by a Global Marie Curie Fellowship, to conduct research alongside Prof. Craig Hawker at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since January 2019, she is an Assistant Professor at ETH and her group focuses on fundamental polymer synthesis and self-assembly predominantly in the area of controlled radical polymerisation. Athina has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and has been the recipient of the ERC starting Grant, the Hanwha-Total IUPAC Young Scientist Award, the Polymers Young Investigator Award and the Golden Owl award, which is in recognition of outstanding faculty teaching. Athina also currently serves as an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry. More details about Athina’s lab can be found here https://polymeric.mat.ethz.ch/ You can follow Athina on Twitter @AthinaAnastasa1 and her lab group @AnastasakiLab

Read Athina’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘The effect of surface-active statistical copolymers in low-energy miniemulsion and RAFT polymerization’ 

Check out our interview with Athina below:

1.  How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

I am very excited about publishing our work in Polymer Chemistry and it has always been a very pleasant experience as, even for the negative decisions, the Editors always treat you with respect and professionalism.

2. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with early career scientists?

What has helped me a lot is asking for support every time I need it without worrying about appearing weak. Finding one (or two) mentors and/or an academic friend makes a huge difference.

Read Louis’s Emerging Investigator article ‘Fully biobased triblock copolymers generated using an unconventional oscillatory plug flow reactor’

Check out our interview with Louis below:

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

I think Polymer Chemistry is a premier journal, well-respected by everyone involved in polymer research. Polymer Chemistry consistently publishes works at the forefront of polymer science, across its diverse range of related topics, and is one of the only journals I routinely browse. The interactions with the editorial board during submission and publication have always been among the best in the publishing world. The speed and professionalism with which our manuscripts are handled is unique and refreshing.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Polymer scientists currently face a grand challenge to adapt to a global plastic-pollution crisis, with far-reaching implications related to the health of our planet and its diverse communities. Our research is helping to advance polymer materials themselves, and transform the way we make polymers to address these challenges head-on. We do this primarily by developing innovative synthetic technology. This is tremendously challenging, considering the vast diversity of topics and expertise that are involved in polymer science – from synthesis to molecular and physical characterization to processing and reactor design. However, this is also an amazing opportunity to collaborate with an inspiring community of experts across the globe – this is one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Try to find a topic that is not only high impact, but will also hold your interest for a long time. Also, finding activities that energize you outside the lab/office has been invaluable for me in maintaining efficiency and staying engaged with both colleagues and students.