News

November

• Congrats to Rei and members of the Harris and Martin groups at UC on a new paper in Advanced Functional Materials! Rei developed a new degradable resin system to 3D print scaffolds from vat polymerization. Ejajul helped optimize the curing conditions and investigate the compressive mechanical properties of the printed specimens. 

• Ejajul and Hong Sik traveled to Brookhaven National Lab to conduct X-ray scattering experiments at the Coherent Hard X-ray (CHX) beamline at NSLS-II. Its been a while since we have done experiments at NSLS-II and we are excited to be back investigating dynamics in rubber tires.

• Ben visited Purdue University to present in the Materials Engineering seminar. We appreciate Prof. Kendra Erk's invitation to check out the labs, see old friends, and meet many new folks conducting exciting research in rheology and soft matter.

October

• We celebrated National Chemistry Week with the Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC group through a series of outreach events at Cincinnati Public Libraries in Corryville and Madisonville. This was our second year working with the Cincinnati Section of the American Chemical Society, who helped coordinate and organize the outreach activities. We had many fun "Hidden Life of Spices" experiments focusing on the chemistry behind the brilliant scents and colors of natural spices!

• We traveled to Santa Fe, NM for the Society of Rheology Annual Conference! Ejajul and Ben delivered oral presentations (Ejajuls first conference presentation!) Once again, it was great connecting with our fellow rheology community, enjoying some of the desert weather and the New Mexican food scene.

• Ejajul received an SOR Student Travel Grant to attend the Annual Meeting and participate in the Rheology Research Symposium (RRS), a student focused workshop that aims to provide mentoring and professional development within the Society of Rheology. Congrats Ejajul! Ben also served as an RRS mentor for the the students.

September

• Ben traveled down the river to Louisville to present in the Chemical Engineering seminar at University of Louisville. UofL is a fun campus and has many similarities with UC. We appreciate the invitation and look forward to future interactions that build our local chemical engineering community.

• The lab received a new 3D printer from Indart3D. The Tumaker MiniPro is a pellet-fed extrusion printer that we will use in our bioplastic packaging and recycling research

• We had a fun end of the summer/start of the fall potluck with Pham, Harris, and Martin Research Groups to celebrate everyones hard work over the past year

August

• Kaylee and Paige join the group as undergraduate researchers. They will be working with Arjun and Leia on the degradation of bio-based plastic packaging. Welcome!

• Leia and Vrushti finished up a great summer of independent research in CHE 4075. Leia figured out how to set our polymer degradation studies, while Vrushti demonstrated how to 3D print our own rheology tools. Leia will be rejoining the group in 2026 after her co-op.

• Ben presented an invited talk at the ACS Fall Meeting in Washington, DC in the Dynamic Polymer Networks: Understanding Adaptive Materials using Data-Driven Experimental Design, Representation and Theory (fantastic session chaired and organized by our friend Luke Baldwin, AFRL). 

• Ben, Ejajul, and members of the Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC group traveled to Case Western Reserve University for the Ohio Polymer and Soft Matter Symposium (OPoSM). Ben co-organized the event with Prof. Abhi Singh (CWRU) and student organizers Sujata Dhakal and Orhun Ayar. We enjoyed several invited talks, student lightning presentations, and a huge poster session. A great way to wrap up a summer of research and join our polymer/soft matter friends across Ohio!

July

• Thank you to all the students who presented in the Soft(Bio)Materials Student Seminar Series! Over the course of the summer, we heard ten great talks from grad students working on soft matter research across Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemistry. Ejajul represented the RheOhio Lab with his presentation on additive manufacturing of colloidal suspensions in June.

• Hong-Sik Eom joins the group as a Ph.D. Student. Hong-Sik will be investigating the degradation of tires and rubber composites. Welcome! 

June

• Sarah's (and the RheOhioLab) first paper is out in Macromolecular Rapid Communications. We compared the curing behavior of linear and bottlebrush elastomers using time-resolved rheology to show universal behavior in the network formation process by applying the time-cure superposition principle and fractional Maxwell models. Excellent collaboration with Kyujin and the Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC group.

• Congrats to Nafise and the team at UBC on a new paper in ACS Applied Polymer Materials. This study investigated aggregate structures in amine functionalized polyolefins and the ability to control self-healing dynamics. 

May

• Leia Han and Vrushti Patel joined the RheOhio group as UG researchers. Leia will be continuing our work on bio-based plastics, while Vrusthi is developing a new project on additive manufacturing of rheology tools. Welcome!

• Anna graduated from UC with her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an M.Eng. in Materials Science. Congrats Anna! Good luck on your engineering career in the biotech industry!

• We received a Society of Rheology Venture Fund Award with Prof. Aashish Priye's group to support our efforts in expanding rheology through community driven DIY projects. Very excited to work on this collaboration!

• Ben was named a CEAS Master Educator at the Spring Faculty and Staff Celebration. The award recognizes excellence in education, mentorship, and innovation among UC faculty. Congrats!

• Ben was selected as a recipient for the 2025 ORAU Ralph E. Powe Jr. Faculty Enhancement Award. This award will support our efforts to implement bioplastic materials within the circular economy. Its also our group's first external award!

April

• The soft matter community of Cincinnati celebrated Prof. Sanat Kumar as the 2025 awardee of the Procter & Gamble Soft Matter Lectureship. His lecture at UC on the role of polymer physics in AI/ML technology was insightful and fascinating.

• Sarah represented the RheOhioLab at the Annual European Rheology Conference (AERC) in Lyon, France! Her talk on statistically-driven time resolved rheology was presented in the "New Advances in Rheometry: Experimental and Modelling Methods" session and sparked many great discussions and new ideas for our group.

March

• Ben attended the APS Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, CA. He presented Ejajul & Anna's project on DLP printing of nanoparticle suspensions in the "Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Materials" session. Once again, the Squishy Science Sunday outreach event was a splashy success.

February

• Miriam's summer project is now out in a new Journal of Chemical Education paper. We demonstrated how to make a low-cost, 3D printed viscometer and tested its feasibility in the undergrad fluid mechanics class, CHE 3025! Now we can all be rheologists!

• We hosted Prof. Danielle Mai (Chemical Engineering, Stanford University) for Chemical Engineering Seminar. What a treat to learn about new approaches in protein engineering and the design of stimuli responsive biopolymers.

January

• Welcome to Spring semester 2025! The RheOhio Lab is now 2 years old!

• Anna Klear joined the group as an undergraduate researcher working towards her MEng in Materials Science through the ACCEND program. Anna will investigate 3D printing of non-Newtonian colloidal suspensions. Welcome!

• We hosted Prof. Lilian Hsiao (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, NC State University) for Chemical Engineering Seminar. Lilian shared her group's recent work in strain stiffening/softening phenomena found in hydrogel composites.

December

• The year wraps up with a massive review article in ACS Nano. We discuss the role of bottlebrush block copolymers in emerging applications of energy storage, electrocatalysis, photonics, drug delivery, and 3D printing. Congrats to the multi-institution team from UC, UMass Amherst, Tianjin University, and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

November

• We collaborated with Kyujin and the Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC group on a recent publication in Journal of Polymer Science. Her study addresses the relationship between rheology and spreading dynamics in dynamically associating polymers. Congrats Kyujin!

• A new publication is out in Physics of Fluids investigating a powerful class of amine functionalized polybutadienes that behave like recyclable rubbers. This study is part of the special collection celebrating the life and career of renowned rheologist Prof. John Dealy.

• We are excited for the new SLA 3D printer in our lab!

October

• We teamed up with the Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC group for an outreach event at Madisonville Public Library to show many bright young scientists the chemistry of light and color. The event was part of a celebration for National Chemistry Week with the ACS Cincinnati Local Section!

• We traveled to Austin, TX for the Society of Rheology Annual Conference! Sarah and Ben delivered oral presentations and Ejajul presented in the poster session. We had so much fun connecting with our fellow rheologists, enjoying the warm weather and the local BBQ scene.

• Sarah received an SOR Student Travel Grant to attend the Annual Meeting and participate in the Rheology Research Symposium (RRS), a student focused program that aims to provide mentoring and increase diversity, equity and inclusion within the Society of Rheology. Congrats Sarah!

• A new publication is out in Journal of Rheology. Ben helped the team at UBC investigate some unusual rheo-mechanical properties of amine containing polyolefins. We were able to successfully predict their time-temperature aging behavior for improved design of functional adhesive performance.

September

• We hosted Prof. Jimmy Lawrence (Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University) for Chemical Engineering Seminar. Jimmy shared some fascinating results from his lab on the design of bottlebrush polymers.

• We hosted Prof. William Wang (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State University) for Chemical Engineering Seminar. We learned all about interesting applications of liquid crystals used in soft material design.

• Arjun Dandekar joined the group as an undergraduate researcher to work on recycling of bio-based plastics. We are looking forward to some exciting and impactful results!

August

• The undergraduate researchers in Prof. Priye's group wrapped up an awesome collaborative summer project with the RheOhio lab developing inexpensive and portable diagnostic tools using complex fluids and rheology. Miriam presented her work at the Protoge Summer Poster Session. We are looking forward to future collaborations on this project.

• Its a new semester at UC! Welcome Bearcats to Fall 2024. Ben begins teaching CHE 3025 - Fluid Mechanics to the chemical engineering undergraduates. Sarah & Ejajul continue their dissertation research in the lab.

July

• Congrats to everyone in CHE 3025 - Fluid Mechanics for making it through the first semester of our new transport curriculum.

June

• Ben attended the 2024 ACS Colloids and Surface Science Symposium in Seattle, WA, presenting an invited talk on the group's work on new advancements of "time resolved rheology". Special thanks to the organizers for hosting a great summer conference. We are looking forward to next year in Edmonton!

May

• Ben presented at the 22nd International Symposium on Applied Rheology (ISAR) at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea. Thank you to Prof. JD Park and the Korean Society of Rheology for the invitation! We appreciate the opportunity to share rheology all around the world and look forward to building connections with our friends in South Korea.

• Ben and Ejajul attended the Ohio Polymer and Soft Matter Symposium (OPoSM) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. We were joined by the Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC to connect with academic, industrial, and government scientists across Ohio. Ejajul was awarded a poster prize for his poster on the rheology of colloidal suspensions used in 3D printing.

April

• Ejajul received a Graduate Student Government (GSG) Research Fellowship Award to support his thesis work. Way to go!

• Khanh Phan joined the group as an undergraduate researcher to work on a collaborative project with Prof. Aashish Priye's group (Chemical Engineering, UC). We are looking forward to a fun summer of research.

March

• Ejajul passed his comprehensive exam and is now officially a Ph.D. candidate. Congrats!

• Ben attended the APS March Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. He presented an invited talk in the "Additive Manufacturing of Soft Materials" session and shared some new results on polymer gelation from the RheOhio group. A top highlight was the Squishy Science Sunday outreach event!

• Ben is named a 2024 URC Faculty Scholar! This award will support research that addresses the plastic waste crisis and recycling of plastic packaging.

February

• Members of RheOhio and Soft Materials and Interfaces @ UC groups volunteered with the ACS Dayton Local Section at TechFest Dayton. We conducted many hands-on chemistry experiments with the visitors, but the "Elephant Toothpaste" was definitely the highlight!

• We received a "new" TA Rheometer, kindly donated from our friends at Dow Chemical. This rheometer will be used for new soft matter characterization capabilities within the college and across UC campus.

January

• Welcome to Spring semester 2024! The RheOhio Lab is now 1 year old!