Soft Matter Blog

Henry Chu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at University of Florida (UF).  He obtained a M.Phil. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Hong Kong in 2012 under the supervision of Professors Chiu-On Ng and Kwok-Wing Chow.  He earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2017 under the supervision of Professor Roseanna Zia.  Following his Ph.D., he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, working with Professors Aditya Khair, Robert Tilton, and Stephen Garoff.  In 2021, he joined UF.  The theme of his research is heterogeneous soft matter transport and design, covering topics such as complex fluid dynamics, colloid and interface science, electrokinetics, and rheology.  His research develops predictive multi-scale computational tools and fundamental theory to address emerging National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering in these research areas, emphasizing on close collaboration with experimental groups to translate knowledge into applications.  His work has been recognized through several awards, including Clyde W. Mason Scholarship (Cornell), Research Travel Grant Award (Cornell), Student Member Travel Award (American Institute of Physics), and Global Faculty Fellowship (UF).  We welcome collaboration with academia, government agencies, and industry sponsors.

Find out more about his work via:

Website: http://www.chugroup.site/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HenryCWChu

Read Henry Chu’s Emerging Investigator article: http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01620F

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Soft Matter is a great place to publish our Emerging Investigator article on diffusiophoresis in porous media.  In the article, we develop a mathematical model that predicts the diffusiophoretic motion of a colloidal particle driven by a concentration gradient of a binary monovalent electrolyte in porous media.  In addition to unveiling the impacts on colloid diffusiophoresis by porous media, our model predictions agree excellently with recent experiments, which otherwise could not be done with existing theories.  Our model could also predict diffusiophoresis in porous media filled with any monovalent electrolyte.  We believe that our model will motivate and benchmark future theories and experiments.

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

As a computation/theory group focusing on soft matter transport and design, we are excited about leveraging our discoveries to develop practical applications and to explain novel transport phenomena.  Our strategy is always to develop models which are as simple as possible but can capture the key physics of a system.  Although these are not easy tasks, I enjoy tackling these challenges with my students and collaborators!

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

I think one promising future direction is diffusiophoresis in porous media, which is the theme of our Emerging Investigator article.  To date, excellent theories and experiments have been done on diffusiophoresis in free electrolyte solutions but not in porous media.  Many novel applications, however, involve diffusiophoresis in porous media.  I believe that the huge potential of diffusiophoresis will start a new wave of research that addresses both the fundamental and application aspect of the topic.

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

I would share the advice that I gladly have from my respected research advisors 🙂  Work on things that you are passionate about.  Enjoy your work with your students and collaborators.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my research advisors, colleagues, and friends, who have given me great support in my early career, thank you!

Jeremy Cho is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Previously, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department where he studied water transport and solid mechanics of granular hydrogel systems. He received his PhD and SM in mechanical engineering from MIT where he focused on phase-change heat transfer and interfacial phenomena. He received his BSE in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan. In 2022, he received the National Science Foundation CAREER and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator awards. As he is originally from Hawaiʻi, Jeremy named his group “Da Kine Lab” from Hawaiian Pidgin as the term is a placeholder similar to “whatchamacallit” representing the very diverse range of research topics he pursues: liquid-vapor phase-change phenomena, heat and mass transfer, interfacial and wetting phenomena, surfactant chemistry, and polymer physics.

Find out more about his work via:

Website: dakine.sites.unlv.edu

LinkedIn: Jeremy Cho – Assistant Professor – University of Nevada-Las Vegas | LinkedIn

Read Jeremy Cho’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01215D

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

To me, Soft Matter, is the catch-all journal for fields that are near and dear to me: polymers, mechanics, and transport. This is my third Soft Matter paper—and the journal has a special place in my heart as it is where I published my first paper with my own lab group since becoming faculty. I look forward to continuing to publish in Soft Matter and getting better connected with its highly diverse readers.

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

Actually, some of the most challenging things can be the most exciting parts. We deal with a lot of polymer theory and thermodynamics so we try to visualize how polymer strands behave—they’re too small to just fire up a microscope and observe. These are very difficult thought experiments, but over the course of many discussions and drawings with students and colleagues and poring over the literature, I found that analogies can be incredibly helpful. We end up coming up with pretty hilarious analogies—often with food—that we feel really illustrates certain concepts in a very obvious way. With this paper, it was a noodles as polymer strands analogy. And the analogy went deeper where if you imagine that if you are eating the noodles in a bowl of noodle soup, the volume fraction of noodles diminishes, loosening up the mixture—akin to a hydrogel becoming softer and permeable. I always felt that just throwing up an equation can only do so much. Being able to convey an understanding in a way that is relatable to the co-authors, readers, your family members, and really anyone is such a challenging yet exciting task. Nonetheless, I believe being an effective scientific communicator, both to our field and the public, is an important duty.

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

Sometimes, the best questions come from non-scientists who ask me about what the work in our field means. It helps us define a purpose for our research. I also believe it is important for us, in the field, to ask each other to “explain it like we’re five” as a constant check on the familiarity of our understanding on a topic.

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

Starting a brand new research group is tough! Getting your students to immediately understand your past work and continue it in their own way is something that doesn’t just happen as smoothly as an Olympic baton handoff. I would say that showing your passion and enthusiasm for a topic or skill set really does rub off on your students and eventually they will find their way.

Morgan Stefik is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina and is the Founding Director of the South Carolina SAXS Collaborative. He obtained a BE degree in Materials Engineering from California Polytechnic State University in 2005 and a PhD degree in Materials Science from Cornell University in 2010. He then completed postdoctoral research at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. His accolades include a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2018, recognition as an Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A in 2017, a Breakthrough Star Award from the University of South Carolina in 2018, election to the council of the International Mesostructured Materials Association in 2018, selection as an ACS PMSE division Young Investigator in 2020, recognition as an Early Career Scholar by the Journal of Materials Research in 2022, a Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation from the University of South Carolina in 2022, and a Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Fellowship in 2022.  Morgan can be found on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/morganstefik

Read Morgan’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00513A

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 most excited about kinetic-control broadly and particularly as applied to polymer assemblies. Rather than finding the singular equilibrium arrangement at some condition, kinetic-control opens up the possibility to make infinite different configurations.  Some of these new configurations can often enable new and useful properties or help solve existing problems. Reproducibility is a significant challenge with kinetic-control since such processes are inherently pathway-dependent and one often does not know which processing parameters are important at the beginning. Furthermore, many of the characterization techniques are only convenient at the end of processing which makes it that much more difficult to figure out what was happening throughout the entire processing timeline.  The tremendous potential for new and exciting capabilities, however, make this challenge worthy of attention from my perspective.

Ting Ge is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. He earned his BS degree in 2007 from the University of Science and Technology of China followed by a Ph. D. degree in 2013 from Johns Hopkins University. Subsequently, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Research Triangle of North Carolina in the USA, first at UNC-Chapel Hill and then at Duke University. He is interested in investigating the microscopic origin of the macroscopic behaviour of various soft matter systems. A combination of molecular simulations and theory is employed in his research activities.

They can be found on Twitter @TingGe15

Read Ting Ge’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00731B

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

The interdisciplinary feature of Soft Matter makes it an ideal place for publishing my research on the force-driven active dynamics of nanorods in polymeric fluids. The microscopic insights from the combined computational and theoretical research are anticipated to intrigue the readers of Soft Matter across different disciplines, such as the material scientists who study the force-driven processing of functional nanorod-containing polymer composites and the biomedical engineers who develop nanorod-based techniques for drug delivery and imaging.

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

The most exciting aspect of my research is the elucidation of the microscopic origin of the macroscopic behavior of various soft matter systems. The goal is achieved through the combination of molecular simulations that have unparalleled access to detailed microscopic information and theoretical modeling that delineate the hierarchy of multiple time and length scales. Topics currently investigated include (1) the effects of polymer topology on the thermodynamics, rheology, and mechanics of polymeric materials, (2) the transport of nanoscale objects in complex polymeric environments, as well as (3) the scale-bridging physics in the fracture behavior of thermoplastics and elastomers. The most challenging aspect of these research topics is making close connections to the synthesis, characterization, and measurements of the relevant soft matter systems in real experiments, both in the setup of a sound model for the molecular simulations and theory and in the comparison between the simulation, theory, and experiments.

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

In my opinion, the most important questions in the research on nanoscale transport in a complex soft matter environment should target the active and far-from-equilibrium nature of a soft matter environment commonly present in living systems, which differ distinctively from the passive and equilibrium nature of many synthetic soft matter materials. One example is the diffusion of virus nanoparticles through a mucus gel network which is essential in preventing lung infection.

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

Starting my research group in January 2020 right ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic was not an easy task. I would love to share one quote with my fellow scientists, “The world’s most precious resource is the persistent and passionate human mind”.

Lorenzo completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physics at the University of L’Aquila (Abruzzo, Italy) in 2010, before moving to the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge to start his PhD in soft condensed matter physics. After graduating in 2013, Lorenzo took up an Oppenheimer Early Career Research Fellowship, followed by a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship in 2016 and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2018. The following year, Lorenzo moved to the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London where he was promoted to the post of Senior Lecturer, before returning to the University of Cambridge Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology in 2022. Lorenzo’s research group, supported by the Royal Society, an ERC Starting Grant, and funding from UK research councils (EPSRC, BBSRC), applies the toolkit of nucleic acid nanotechnology to designing advanced biomimetic systems, biophysical models, and tackling challenges in biomedicine. They can be found on Twitter @DiMicheleLAB1 

Read Lorenzo’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00863G

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Our research group uses DNA nanotechnology to build advanced biomimetic systems: from nanostructures that imitate membrane proteins to whole “synthetic cells” – micro robots designed to reproduce responses typically observed in biological cells.  This research area, sometimes referred to as “bottom-up synthetic biology” is very multidisciplinary, rooted in concepts of biophysics, soft condensed matter, statistical mechanics, physical chemistry, nanotechnology and molecular biology. Our aim is to make our work accessible to scientists working across all these disciplines, and Soft Matter is among the very few journals that can reach out to such a diverse audience. Soft Matter is thus a great venue for our research!

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 really excited about the open-ended nature of my group’s research area. Biological systems have evolved for billions of years to display an extremely rich array of functionalities and behaviours. We aim to re-create some of these responses, but there are so many to choose from, each posing different challenges and requiring different solutions. I find this very stimulating!  Still, this freedom to explore is also challenging for me: some self-control is needed to avoid branching out in too many directions and losing focus!

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

The most urgent question in the field, in my opinion, is around the issue of integration: how do we make components developed by different groups, to produce different responses, compatible with each other?  We can now establish many (relatively) simple responses in synthetic cells, such as synthesis of molecules, directed motion, and control over the properties of synthetic membranes which we address in our contribution to the special issue. In biological cells, however, these responses occur in a highly coordinated fashion, which is critical for more complex behaviours such as decision making, adaptation and evolution. We are still largely unable to achieve this degree of integration in biomimetic systems, as different responses often rely on incompatible components. To tackle this challenge, the community should come together and make an effort towards enhancing cross-compatibility.

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

Follow your passions and intuition when it comes to choosing a field of research – all other considerations are irrelevant if you do not find your own work inspiring.

Lei Bao is currently a Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Environmental Engineering at RMIT University, Australia. She received her PhD in the College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences (CCMS) of Wuhan University, China and was awarded the 2014 Australia Endeavour Fellowship to pursue her postdoctoral studies in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She held an RMIT Vice-Chancellor Fellowship in 2015 and is a recipient of the prestigious Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Her multidisciplinary work is centred on solving energy, environment and health-related challenges through controllable design and engineering of nanomaterials. The research team she leads at RMIT focuses on surface and colloidal engineering with directions in confined nanocarbon synthesis and assembly for energy conversions as well as in the development of biocompatible multifunctional nanocomposites for biomedical applications. They can be found on Twitter @NanocarbonLei, on LinkedIn and online via their website.

Read Lei’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00557C

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Soft Matter provides an excellent platform for researchers from physics, chemistry, materials and engineering to exchange thoughts and discoveries. Our research on nanocarbon assembly lies in the intersection area of fluid dynamics, colloidal engineering and interfacial science. I feel very excited to share our findings with the interdisciplinary readership of Soft Matter and hope it will spark more discussion and collaboration on this research topic.

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

Incorporating nanocarbon materials into electronic devices has been considered a promising approach for developing next-generation devices with high efficiency and high sensitivity. The way to integrate these nanomaterials into the device is critical for functionalities and properties. I am excited to see how our research could deepen the understanding of physical chemistry phenomena, leading to the development of a simple and robust technique to controllably arrange nanocarbons into different structures on surfaces for potential device fabrications. For the assembly of nanocarbon materials with ultrasmall dimensions, such as a few nanometers-sized carbon dots, the biggest challenge is to employ a direct visualisation technique to understand the dynamics of their assembly process. 

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

The ultimate goal of nanomaterial assembly is to precisely control and engineer the structures for design applications. Hence, the mechanism behind the assembly process and how the assembly structures induce different properties are the important questions to be addressed.

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

Research is fun and can be challenging sometimes so find your support systems, such as your colleagues or mentors, who are willing to share their experiences and provide genuine feedback to you.

Andrea Scotti obtained his PhD in 2015 from ETH Zürich (Switzerland) performing his research between the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (GaTech, USA). His PhD thesis was awarded with the Young Scientist Prize of the Swiss Neutron Scattering Society. After a first postdoc at Lund University, he moved to Aachen where in 2017 he started his Alexander Von Humboldt fellowship. Since 2019, he has been a Junior Group Leader at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen university. The main subject of his research is experimental soft matter, with particular focus on the relationship between microscopic architecture of soft building blocks, e.g. microgels, and the macroscopic response of a soft material, both in three and two dimensions. The experimental tools he uses include scattering (neutron, X-ray and light), reflectometry, rheology, computer simulations, interfacial techniques (Langmuir-Blodgett trough) and microscopy techniques (confocal, atomic force).

Read Andrea’s Emerging Investigator article “Experimental determination of the bulk moduli of hollow nanogels“

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

For interdisciplinary studies between the fields of physics, chemistry, and biology, I have found Soft Matter to be one of the best journals in which to disseminate our results, as well as to see what is new in the field of colloidal science.

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

My main interest lies in understanding the ordering of soft material under flow, specifically what is the role of the softness of the individual particles or macromolecules on the overall macroscopic properties of the material. Now we are able to produce soft particles, in particular micro- and nanogels, with different internal structures and shapes. The main challenge is to isolate what are the key characteristics of a particle (e.g. elastic moduli, architecture, shape) that have the dominant effect on the flow and equilibrium phase behaviour of the solutions.

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

One of the main questions is how we can define the idea of softness in a quantitative and rigorous way. This is fundamental to describe its effects on a material’s properties, but also to build bridges between different fields. For instance, is the softness that plays a role in the flow properties of a solution of nanogels the same that affects the flow of blood cells? How soft are viruses compared to other synthetic soft colloids? Answering these questions will allow us to understand the fundamental laws governing different systems. This can pave the way to both a better understanding of soft and condensed matter, but also to the development of synthetic materials that can better mimic biologically-relevant compounds.

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

You should always look for discussions with your colleagues and other researchers. Some of my best work has been the result of spontaneous conversations at conferences, seminars and workshops, which have seeded fruitful long-lasting international collaborations.