Faculty Directory
Kenneth Shull

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering

Contact

2220 Campus Drive
Cook Hall 2036; Office - Cook 2083
Evanston, IL 60208

Email Kenneth Shull

Website

Shull Research Group

Departments

Materials Science and Engineering

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Education

Ph.D. Materials Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

M.S. Electronic Materials, MIT, Cambridge, MA

B.S. Materials Science, MIT, Cambridge, MA


Research Interests

Our focus is on the properties of polymer surfaces and interfaces, with an emphasis on the adhesion of "soft materials." Examples range from traditional pressure-sensitive adhesives (sticky tape) to highly specialized polymeric gels commonly used in biomedical applications.

There is little understanding of the relationship in these systems between polymer adhesion and the structure of the interface on molecular or submolecular scale. We seek to make this connection through studies of well-characterized model systems synthesized in our own lab and through carefully designed fracture mechanics experiments.

Related problems of interest to us include polymer/inorganic composites and the origins of adhesion and mechanical response in biological systems.


Significant Recognition

  • Fellow, American Physical Society, 2002
  • NSF Young Investigator Award, 1994–99
  • Department Teacher of the Year, 1995
  • McCormick Adviser of the Year, 1998

Selected Publications

  • Kazi Sadman, David E. Delgado, Yechan Won, Qifeng Wang, Kimberly A Gray, Kenneth R Shull, “Versatile and High-Throughput Polyelectrolyte Complex Membranes via Phase Inversion”, ACS applied materials & interfaces, (2019)
  • Felipe Jimnez-ngeles, Ha Kyung Kwon, Kazi Sadman, Thomas Wu, Kenneth R Shull, M Olvera de la Cruz, “Self-Assembly of Charge-Containing Copolymers at the Liquid-Liquid Interface”, ACS Central Science, (2019)
  • Kazi Sadman, Qifeng Wang, Kenneth R Shull, “Guanidinium Can Break and Form Strongly Associating Ion Complexes”, ACS Macro Letters, (2019)
  • David E. Delgado, Lauren F. Sturdy, Craig W. Burkhart, Kenneth R Shull, “Validation of quartz crystal rheometry in the megahertz frequency regime”, Journal of Polymer Science, Part B: Polymer Physics, (2019)
  • Yaoyao Chen, Kenneth R Shull, “Thermothickening Behavior of Self-Stabilized Colloids Formed from Associating Polymers”, Macromolecules, (2019)
  • Pavan V. Kolluru, Matthew D. Eaton, David W. Collinson, Xu Cheng, David E. Delgado, Kenneth R Shull, L. Catherine Brinson, “AFM-based Dynamic Scanning Indentation (DSI) Method for Fast, High-resolution Spatial Mapping of Local Viscoelastic Properties in Soft Materials”, Macromolecules, (2018)
  • Nicholas B. Karabin, Sean Allen, Ha Kyung Kwon, Sharan Bobbala, Emre Firlar, Tolou Shokuhfar, Kenneth R Shull, Evan Alexander Scott, “Sustained micellar delivery via inducible transitions in nanostructure morphology”, Nature Communications, (2018)
  • Kazi Sadman, Clinton G. Wiener, R. A. Weiss, Christopher C. White, Kenneth R. Shull, Bryan D. Vogt, “Quantitative Rheometry of Thin Soft Materials Using the Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation”, Analytical Chemistry, (2018)