Polymer Day 2018

The 8th annual MIT Polymer Day was held on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 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 and a networking lunch. Following the poster session, attendees listened to talks by invited speakers and an alumni panel, 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.

Poster Prizes

Grand Prize (Apple iPad)

     Brett Geiger, “Cartilage Penetrating Nanocarriers Enhance Drug Delivery and Efficacy in Osteoarthritis”

     Graduate Student, Hammond Group and Grodzinsky Group, MIT

Runner Up (Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Headphones)

     Ryan Selhorst, “Polymer Dopants for Work Function Tuning of 2-D Materials”

     Graduate Student, Emrick Group, UMass Amherst

     Jake Song, “Rheological modelling of nanoparticle connectivity in nanocomposite gels”

     Graduate Student, Holten-Andersen Group and McKinley Group, MIT

Honorable Mention (WD 1TB Portable Hard Drive)

     Marcus Cole, “New Approaches Towards Perylene Diimide-based Polymer Electrolytes and Zwitterions”

     Graduate Student, Emrick Group, UMass Amherst

     Joshua Enokida, “Structural Transitions in Ionomers Containing Ammonium Counter Ions”

     Graduate Student, Coughlin Group, UMass Amherst

     Erica Lai, “Deciphering the adhesive properties of mussel-inspired metal-coordinate physical gels”

     Graduate Student, Holten-Andersen Group, MIT

     Seth Sharber, “Tuning Stimulus Response and Material Properties in Mechanofluorochromic Phenylene Ethynylene Oligomers”

     Graduate Student, Thomas Group, Tufts

Our alumni panel this year featured atypical career paths after earning a PhD in polymer and soft matter fields. We were honored to have the following MIT PPSM alumni share their journeys!

     Dr. Amy Grayson, Independent Consultant

     Dr. Erik Handy, Principal Scientist, SI2 Technologies, Inc.

     Dr. Alice Leung, Senior Scientist, BBN Technologies

     Dr. Jessica Liao, Senior Manager, Project Management, Nuance Communications

Research Talks

Wade Wang, "Synthetic Proteoglycans Based Off a Modular Polypeptide Scaffold"

German Parada, "Ideal Reversible Polymer Networks: Theory and Experiments"

Brett Geiger, "Charge Optimized Polymer-Drug Conjugates Provide Targeted, Sustained Delivery to Cartilage"