The 7th annual MIT Polymer Day was held on Thursday, April 13, 2017 in Morss Hall (142 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139). Detailed schedule information can be found here.
Polymer Day started with a poster session judged by local industry professionals over a light lunch. Following the poster session, attendees listened to talks by invited speakers before celebrating the culmination of the day with a reception and awards ceremony. Polymer Day is open to the entire MIT community, as well as to students from polymer research programs throughout Massachusetts.
Prizes were given for the best posters. This year's prizes and award winners were:
1 Grand Prize – GoPro HERO5 Black Starter Bundle:
- Pan Wang, "New Magneto-Optic Polymeric Materials with Giant Faraday Rotation" (Post-Doc, Swager Group)
2 Runners Up – Kindle Voyage Essentials Bundle:
- Doug Godfrin, "Modular Hydrogels for Customized Formulation and Delivery of Hydrophobic Pharmaceuticals" (Post-Doc, Doyle Group)
- Won Jun Jo, "Vapor-Printed Polymers for Enhanced Solar Cell Efficiency and Lifetime" (Graduate Student, Gleason Group)
4 Honorable Mentions – Echo Dot (2nd generation):
- Zhaoqianqi Feng, "Enzyme-Instructed Assembly and Disassembly Processes for Targeting Downregulation in Cancer Cells" (Graduate Student, Xu Group at Brandeis University)
- Tyson Moyer, "Tuning Multimeric Architecture of Peptide Antigens on Nanoparticles to Optimize B-cell Activation" (Post-Doc, Irvine Lab)
- Mukarram Tahir, "Amphiphilic Nanoparticles as Biomimetic Fusion Proteins" (Graduate Student, Alexander-Katz Group)
- Vijesh A. Tanna, "Onset of Non-Linearity and Yield Strain of a Model Soft Solid" (Graduate Student, Winter Group at UMass Amherst)
New this year was an alumni panel focusing on entrepreneurship and atypical professions after earning a PhD from a program like MIT's Program in Polymers and Soft Matter (PPSM). We were honored to have the following PPSM alumni share their journeys!
- Dr. Jeri'Ann Hiller, Senior Manager of Biocompatibility, Corporate Preclinical Sciences at Boston Scientific
- Dr. Orhun Muratoglu, Director of the Harris Orthopaedics Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital
- Prof. Shashi Murthy, Founding Director of the Sherman Center for Engineering Entrepreneurship Education and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University
- Dr. Charlotte Stewart-Sloan, Technology Specialist in Chemical & Materials Technologies at Wolf Greenfield
- Dr. Monica Swinney, Chief Engineer of Drug Delivery & Devices R&D Innovation at Eli Lilly & Co.
