Soft Condensed Matter Group

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     Our research group is primarily concerned with the properties of soft condensed matter such as colloidal, polymeric and surfactant materials, particularly in solution.  These soft materials or complex fluids are characterized by the ease with which they deform in response to perturbations such as thermal fluctuations, external stresses and electrical or magnetic fields.  Their unique properties owe to the existence of mesoscopic structures, sometimes self-assembled aggregates, other times quenched entities such as polymers or colloidal particles, whose dimensions exceed atomic and molecular length scales.  The macroscopically observable response of these materials is dictated by the structure and dynamics present at this mesoscale.  As chemical engineers we are particularly interested in developing structure-property-processing relationships in order to  engineer specific functionality at the mesoscopic scale.  We investigate materials of both biological and synthetic origin with an eye towards understanding the fundamental physical and chemical principles which underlie their specific functions.  We typically probe these interesting soft materials via a whole host of scattering, particle tracking, rheological and optical microscopy techniques with an occasional foray into other spectroscopic methods.