Research / Areas of ResearchPolymers and Soft Materials
Soft materials and polymers are ubiquitous in our lives and form the basis of many advances in medicine, sustainability, manufacturing, and clean water access. What makes these materials unique is that their structure and dynamics span multiple length- and time- scales, and these microscopic characteristics can be engineered to control material properties. At Northwestern, researchers seek to discover and exploit these relationships to design materials that improve the performance of technologies that address important societal challenges including lowering the cost of renewable energy generation and storage, generating renewable fuels, circularizing the plastics economy, and creating the next-generation of high-performance composites.
Research Areas
Areas of emphasis for faculty in our department include controlling electronic and ionic transport, enhancing mechanical durability and reprocessability, enabling the next generation of soft robots and flexible electronics, and discovering new material properties and structure-property relationships. These efforts are informed by a deep expertise in synthesis, fabrication, and characterization techniques including small angle scattering, optical microscopy, electrochemical measurements, rheology and mechanics, and simulation.
At Northwestern, the soft matter and polymer research community is vibrant and includes faculty from diverse personal and academic backgrounds. The proximity to Argonne National Laboratory, our strong inter-departmental relationships, and the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) make our department and Northwestern a hub for soft matter and polymer research world-wide.
Faculty
![]() |
Linda BroadbeltSarah Rebecca Roland Professor
|
![]() |
Wesley BurghardtProfessor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
|
![]() |
Jeffrey LopezAssistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering (beginning September 1, 2021)Polymeric materials for energy storage applications, charge transport in polymer membranes, reactions at electrochemical interfaces, automated experimentation |
![]() |
Richard LueptowProfessor of Mechanical Engineering (and by courtesy) Chemical and Biological Engineering
|
![]() |
Tobin MarksVladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry and Chemical and Biological Engineering and (by courtesy) Materials Science and EngineeringThe Marks group has chemists and engineers working on waste polymer deconstruction and recycling, solar energy, and efficient hydrocarbon utilization. |
![]() |
Chad MirkinGeorge B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, and (by courtesy) Chemical and Biological Engineering and Biomedical EngineeringMirkin explores the enormous parameter space of polyelemental nanoparticles, identifying ones for fuel cells, solar energy, and light emission. |
![]() |
Monica Olvera de la CruzLawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry and (by courtesy) Chemical and Biological Engineering, Physics and Astronomy |
![]() |
Jeffrey RichardsAssistant Professor of Chemical and Biological EngineeringThe Richards Laboratory studies the properties of soft materials and engineers them for applications including renewable energy storage and new sensors. |
![]() |
George SchatzProfessor of Chemistry and (by courtesy) Chemical and Biological EngineeringSchatz uses molecular dynamics and electronic structure theory methods to describe self-assembly of biopolymers, and polymer mechanical/structural properties. |
![]() |
Igal SzleiferChristina Enroth-Cugell Professor of Biomedical Engineering
|
![]() |
John TorkelsonWalter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Materials Science and EngineeringThe Torkelson group seeks to both understand molecular-scale behavior of polymers to engineer their properties by tuning molecular-scale responses via dynamic chemistry, nanoscale confinement, chain architecture, and novel solid-state processing, among other methods. |
![]() |
Mitchell WangAssistant Professor of Chemical and Biological EngineeringThe Wang Laboratory uses optics, synthesis, and high-throughput characterization to understand and design polymers for biomaterials and sustainability. |