Chemical Science symposium 2023: Chemistry of polymers

Steve graduated from Bristol University (BSc 1983 and PhD 1987). He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico before taking up a lectureship at Sussex University in 1989. He was promoted to full Professor in 2000 and moved to Sheffield University in 2004. He has published >700 papers (45,200 citations, H-index 122), received six RSC medals and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014. Steve has graduated 65 PhD students and has advised more than 70 postdoctoral scientists. He collaborates with various industrial companies, including BASF, BP, Syngenta, Ashland and GEO Specialty Chemicals.

A PhD graduate of Göttingen University, Germany, Christopher Barner-Kowollik joined the University of New South Wales in early 2000, becoming one of the co-directors of its Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design in 2006. In 2008, he joined KIT, later establishing a German Research Council (DFG) Centre of Excellence. He moved to QUT in 2017, founding QUT’s Soft Matter Materials Laboratory, one of the world’s leading photochemical research teams. Over his 24-year career to date focussing on precision (macromolecular) photochemical processes, he supported highly collaborative large teams across two continents, documented in over 760 peer-reviewed publications that have been cited over 45 000 times. His multi-award-winning research – most recently recognized by the 2023 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Centenary Prize - explores precision wavelength orthogonal, synergistic and antagonistic photochemical reactions and their applications in macromolecular systems.

Eva Blasco completed her Ph.D. studies at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) under the supervision of Prof. L. Oriol and Dr. Pinol. Thereafter, she obtained an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to work in the groups of Prof. C. Barner-Kowollik (Polymer Chemistry) and Prof. M. Wegener (Applied Physics) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. Afterwards, she continue as a group leader at the same institution. In October 2020, she was appointed junior professor at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and since January 2023 she has been promoted to full professor. Her research interests include the development of new functional polymers by employing light, particularly, for 3D laser printing.

Anindita Das received her Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Suhrit Ghosh from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata, India in 2014. Subsequently, she worked as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Patrick Théato at the University of Hamburg, Germany. In 2016, she moved to the group of Prof. E. W. Meijer at the Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, for her second postdoctoral research. In 2017, she joined as a Faculty Fellow at IACS, where she currently holds the position of Assistant Professor in the School of Applied and Interdisciplinary Sciences. Her research interests include supramolecular assemblies of functional π-systems and macromolecules employing halogen-bonding and other underexplored supramolecular interactions, crystallization-driven macromolecular assemblies and biodegradable polymers.

James L. Hedrick is a Distinguished Research Staff Member at IBM's Almaden Research Center, but spends a significant amount of time at IBM's Yorktown Heights Research facility, Stanford University as well as the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore. Jim has pioneered new polymer-forming reactions as high temperature interlayer dielectrics and block copolymers for low dielectric materials and help create the foundation of block copolymer lithography. Jim introduced the polymer community to organic catalysis as an environmentally benign means to living polymerization that provided entry into the nanomedicine field. Jim now leads an effort at IBM in collaboration with IBN to solve critical problems in antimicrobial resistance, gene delivery, sustained therapeutic release and cancer therapies. Jim has over 500 publications, ~450 patents, serves on numerous advisory boards and as won many awards including the IBM Grand Challenge (2017) on Antibiotic Resistance, ACS Herman Mark Senior Scholar award (2017), President Obama’s EPA Green Chemistry award (2012), ACS Polymer Fellow (2010), Carl Marvel award (ACS) on Creative Polymer Chemistry (2003), ACS award on Cooperative Chemistry with Stanford University (2009) and IBM Master Inventor (2018).

Dr. Brett A. Helms is a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He completed his B.S. in chemistry in 2000 at Harvey Mudd College and his Ph.D. in the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. Since starting his independent career, he has built a diverse research program to solve global challenges in energy and sustainability. He harnesses synthetic chemistry, computational insights, X-ray characterization, and engineering to forge a molecular-level understanding of materials to realize performance advantages with them in batteries, adaptive and reconfigurable energy materials, and chemically recyclable polymers for the circular economy.

Bumjoon Kim is a KAIST Endowed Chair Professor and Department Head in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST. He received his Ph.D. degree from UC Santa Barbara (2006). Afterward, he worked with Prof. Jean Fréchet at UC Berkeley until 2008. He received awards including the MSIT-NRF Scientist of the Month Award (Korean Government, 2021), S-Oil Next-Generation Researcher Award (Korea Academy of Science and Technology, 2021), Young Scientist Award (World Economic Forum 2013), KAIST Academic Excellence Award (2015) and Shimgye Science Award (2017). He has published 280 peer-reviewed papers and 70 issued/pending patents with an H-index of 74 and > 18000 citations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2022) and a member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea (2023). He currently serves as an editorial (advisory) board member of Chem. Mater. (ACS), J. Mater. Chem. A (RSC), Chinese Journal of Polymer Science and Giant (Elsevier) and serves as an associate editor of Nanoresearch Energy.

Christine Luscombe received her Bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2000, after which she worked with Profs. Andrew Holmes and Wilhelm Huck in the Melville Laboratory of Polymer Synthesis at the University of Cambridge where her research focused on surface modifications using supercritical carbon dioxide for her PhD. In January 2004, she joined the group of Prof. Jean Fréchet for her post-doctoral studies where she began her research on semiconducting polymers for organic photovoltaics. In September 2006, she joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. She moved to the Okinawa Institute of Technology Graduate University in Japan in 2021.  

Kris Matyjaszewski is J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences and director of Center for Macromolecular Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He prepares advanced materials for biomedical, environmental and energy-related applications. In 1994 he discovered Cu-mediated atom transfer radical polymerization, commercialized in 2004 in US, Japan and Europe. He has co-authored >1,200 publications, (180,000 citations, h-index 204) and 68 US patents. He is a member of National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences and European, Australian, Polish Academies of Sciences. He received 2023 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences, 2017 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry, 2015 Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, and eleven honorary degrees.

Julien Nicolas received his PhD degree in 2005 from the University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris, France), where he studied nitroxide-mediated polymerization and emulsion polymerization. After a postdoctoral position at the University of Warwick (Coventry, UK) on polymer-protein bioconjugates, he obtained in 2007 a permanent CNRS researcher position at Institut Galien Paris-Saclay (Châtenay-Malabry, France) and got promoted Director of Research at CNRS in 2016. His current research activities lie in advanced macromolecular synthesis and in the design of innovative polymer-based nanomedicines, in particular polymer nanoparticles and polymer prodrug nanocarriers for anticancer therapy. He serves as Associate Editor for Chemistry of Materials (ACS) and is part of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Macro Letters (ACS), Macromolecules (ACS) and Polymer Chemistry (RSC). He received the 2016 SCF/GFP award, the 2017 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship award, the 2017 Novacap Prize of the Academy of Science and the 2018 Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award.

Javier Read de Alaniz is the director of the NSF BioPACIFIC Materials Innovation Platform, Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute and a member of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara since 2009. Javier received his B.S. degree from Fort Lewis College in 1999 where he conducted undergraduate research under the direction of Professor William R. Bartlett. He obtained his Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Tomislav Rovis at Colorado State University in 2006. His doctoral research focused on asymmetric catalysis. Javier then moved to California, where he worked in the area of total synthesis with Professor Larry E. Overman at the University of California, Irvine. During that time, he was the recipient of the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Ben Zhong TANG is a Presidential Chair Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. He is a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His team is working on polymer chemistry, materials science and theranostic systems. His papers have been cited >161,000 times, with a h-index of 176. He has been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher in both areas of Chemistry and Materials Science since 2014. He has received many awards, including National Natural Science Award (1st class) in 2017, Nano Today Award in 2021 and Biomaterials Global Impact Award in 2023. He is serving as Editor-in-Chief of Aggregate published by Wiley.

Dr. Tran is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Chemistry (co-appointed in the Department of Chemical Engineering). She was an Intelligence Community postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University under the mentorship of Prof. Zhenan Bao in the Chemical Engineering Department, where she worked on stretchable and biodegradable electronics. She received her BS in Chemistry with a minor in Chemical Engineering from the University of California—Berkeley in 2009, conducting undergraduate research with Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu (Electrical Engineering, Berkeley) and Prof. Christopher Schuh (Material Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). In the two subsequent years, Dr. Tran was a post-baccalaureate fellow and Scientific Engineering Assistant in Dr. Ronald Zuckermann’s research group at the Molecular Foundry at Berkeley National Labs, exploring the self-assembly of biomimetic polymers into 2D nanosheets. She completed her PhD at Columbia University in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Luis Campos as a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellow, broadly investigating hierarchical ordering and periodic patterning in block copolymer systems. To date, she has been awarded the Agilent Cary Recognition for Scientific Innovation Award, the Dorothy Shoichet Women Faculty in Science Award of Excellence, International Center for Materials Research fellowship, and George Pegram Award. Also, she was selected as a AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador for her outreach endeavors, leading to media opportunities such as being featured on the CBS TV show Mission Unstoppable and on the Girl Scouts Cadette Badge Workbook for Exploring STEM Careers. Dr. Tran has been committed to scientific outreach, endorses communication among interdisciplinary disciplines, and continually strives to become a supportive mentor. 

Charlotte K. Williams FRS is a professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Associate Head of Department (Research) in Oxford Chemistry. She is an EPSRC Established Career Research Fellow. She heads-up a research group investigating polymerisation catalysis and polymer chemistry with a particular focus on improving polymer sustainability. Her work involves close collaboration with scientists and engineers in both academic and industrial laboratories. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a fellow of Academia Europea. Her work has been recognised by the 2022 Royal Society Leverhulme Medal for Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, 2021RSC Tilden Medal, an OBE (2020) for Services to Chemistry, 2019 Macro Group Medal and the 2018 Otto Roelen Medal of DeChema.
 
From 2003-2016, Charlotte was an academic in the Chemistry department at Imperial College London. Earlier in her career, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge University (2002-2003), working with Andrew Holmes FRS and Richard Friend FRS (Organometallic polymers for electronics), and at the University of Minnesota (2001-2002) working with Bill Tolman and Marc Hillmyer (zinc catalysts for lactide polymerisation). She obtained her BSc and PhD from Imperial College London, the latter supervised by Vernon Gibson FRS and Nick Long on ethene polymerisation catalysis.

Brent Sumerlin is the George Bergen Butler Chair in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. He received his undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University and later earned his PhD in Polymer Science & Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi. After serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor/Postdoctoral Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University, he began a faculty position at Southern Methodist University before moving to the University of Florida. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the recipient of a number of awards, including the Hanwha-Total IUPAC Award and the UF Doctoral Dissertation Mentoring/Advising Award.