Events

Seminars at High School (SAHS) was born out of the need to showcase non-traditional paths in STEM by exposing high school students to underrepresented/minority early career scientists.

Speaker: Victoria Kong

ABSTRACT

Every day, we put our trust in polymers. Polymers, more commonly known as plastics, make up part of the materials found in our shoes, our chairs, our seatbelts, and more. For our shoes, we trust that these polymers will survive each step we take. If a shoe sole breaks down, no big deal, we can find another pair. But what if the consequences of a material breaking is greater? This time, what if instead of a shoe sole cracking, it’s the polymer in someone’s artificial knee or hip? Before a material is used for the manufacturing of such an important product, chemists, material scientists, and engineers conduct thorough tests and experiments to fully investigate how a material responds to different forces and environments. In this talk, you will learn about how our lab at the University of Pittsburgh is working to understand how force is distributed throughout polymer materials, different ways in which we can change how a polymer responds to force, and some of the fun tools and tricks we use to “watch” a polymer stretch and strain on the molecular level.