NEWS — 2024
Danielle joined podcast host Shripriya Kalbhavi for a candid discussion about her journey in science, technology, engineering, and math. Learn more about chemical engineering, biopolymers, and building microscopes in the latest episode of “The Double X Effect” on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Danielle delivered the keynote lecture for the University of Michigan Chemical Engineering Graduate Symposium. Thanks and congratulations to the amazing graduate student organizers for putting together an impressive event!
Congratulations to Lucy Wang and Ally Yun for winning poster awards at this year’s Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Seed Grants Program Poster Session!
We received an award from the Community of Shared Research Platforms (c-ShARP) Instrumentation & Enhancement Program for “Expanding Stanford’s BioAFM Capabilities” in collaboration with the Stanford Cell Sciences Imaging Facility CSIF (CSIF)! We are excited to continue collaborating with CSIF with the new BioAFM!
Congratulations to our summer researchers for their fantastic contributions to the lab!! Ally Yun, Jesse Grayson, and Camily Pereira dos Santos are current Stanford undergraduate students who joined us through the Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program (USRP) and Department of Chemical Engineering Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU); Paola Urbina-Ramos is a student at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez who joined us through the School of Engineering’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF); and Tianyi is a student at Tsinghua University who joined us through the School of Engineering’s Chinese Undergraduate Visiting Research (UGVR) Program. Huge thanks to Brendan, Eleanor, Marina, and Lucy for their mentorship!
We were awarded an International Research Exploration Seed Grant to expand Alana’s collaboration with Prof. Bizan Balzer at the University of Freiburg in Germany. This grant will support cutting edge single-molecule studies of ion-binding proteins for heavy metal sequestration. We thank the Steven and Roberta Denning International Research Fund and Vice Provost and Dean of Research Office for this opportunity!
Congratulations to Alana for receiving a Stanford Community Impact Award and an APS DSOFT Future Investigator Travel (FIT) Award!
Congratulations to Brendan for receiving a 2024 Centennial Teaching Assistant Award and being selected as a finalist for the AIChE Area 08A Excellence in Graduate Student Polymer Research Session!
Marina and Danielle attended the 2024 MRS Spring Meeting in Seattle! Marina shared her outstanding work on calcium-responsive protein-based materials in a talk and a poster. Danielle co-organized a symposium on Bio-based and Biomimetic Polymers in Soft Robotics with Minkyu Kim (University of Arizona), Artur Braun (EMPA, Switzerland), and Newayemedhin Tegegne (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia). We thank MRS, ARO, and Millipore Sigma for supporting the symposium!
Congratulations to Eleanor and Michelle for receiving Honorable Mentions from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program! We’re all proud of their excellent contributions to research and outreach, which have already had strong positive impacts on the Stanford research community.
Brendan and Danielle attended the 2024 ACS Spring Meeting in New Orleans. Brendan gave an outstanding talk and poster presentation, and Danielle delivered invited lectures in symposia for “Adaptive Materials from Dynamic Polymer Networks and Composites” and “PMSE Centennial: Celebration of Success and New Frontiers in Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering”. Danielle also received the 2023 Arthur K. Doolittle Award at the PMSE/POLY Awards Reception. Happy 100th anniversary to the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE)!
Danielle was named a Fellow for Scialog: Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials. This initiative aims to spark advances in the mining, design, manufacture, and disposal of materials needed to achieve a more sustainable and low-carbon energy system. We are excited to engage in “science + dialog” with other early career researchers to launch innovative, collaborative research projects!
We are excited to officially welcome Michelle Quan (Chemical Engineering PhD student) to the lab! She plans to explore biomolecular actuation using ion-responsive biopolymers.
We were thrilled to join the inaugural Stanford STEMfest as one of three flagship labs to offer in-person lab tours! STEMfest welcomed over 3,000 visitors to campus. We led 8 lab tours with biopolymer demos and all-ages hands on activities for over 200 visitors. Huge thanks to tour guides & volunteers Michelle, Brendan, Lucy, and Eleanor for their endless enthusiasm as some guests waited for hours (!) to a chance to see our lab. We hope everyone learned something new and inspiring!
Louis, Eleanor, and Danielle attended the 2024 APS March Meeting in Minneapolis. Louis and Eleanor gave fantastic talks and poster presentations, and Danielle spoke in a session honoring this year’s Dillon Medal Winner, Charles Sing! Danielle also gave her first invited APS lecture in a focus session on “Programmed Responsive Polymers and Soft Matter.” We enjoyed meeting up with alum Ke Jin, who recently joined the Mahanthappa lab at the University of Minnesota, as well as fellow DNA topologists in the Klotz Lab at Cal State University Long Beach.
Danielle shared our work on “Decoding Repetitive Proteins to Engineer Stimuli-Responsive Biopolymers” with the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Georgia Tech and as a student-invited speaker at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. The UofT visit was hosted by “Working towards Inclusivity in Chemistry at Toronto (WICTO)”. Thanks for great questions, discussions, and ideas!
Danielle speaks on a panel with Ellen Yeh and Laura Dassama about launching a lab, moderated by John Boothroyd.
Danielle shared her perspective on “Launching a Lab” in a panel discussion for the Science Leadership Program for the 2024 Schmidt Science Fellows. Thanks for a fun and candid conversation!
We are excited and grateful for support from the NSF Process Systems, Reaction Engineering, and Molecular Thermodynamics program to engineer optically recyclable polymer resins for sustainable additive manufacturing!
Alana was selected for the Graduate Research and Internship Program in Germany (GRIP), coordinated by the Europe Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute and Stanford Global Studies. Alana will learn new single-molecule methods at the University of Freiburg. Congratulations!
Several group members were selected for Bio-X Travel Awards! These awards will support travel for Eleanor and Louis to the APS March Meeting in Minneapolis, Brendan to the ACS Spring Meeting in New Orleans, Marina to the MRS Spring Meeting in Seattle, and Alana to the IUPAC World Polymer Congress in the United Kingdom. Congrats to all!
Our proposal on the “Multiplexed Fabrication of Transparent Biomimetic Nanodevices” was selected for the 2024 Community of Shared Research Platforms (c-ShaRP) Voucher Program. Congrats to Louis, who led the effort on this proposal!
Our proposal for an “Atomic Force Microscope for Single-Molecule Investigations of Biomolecular Actuation by Ion-Responsive Repeat Proteins” was selected for the 2024 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program! We are thrilled to upgrade our BioAFM capabilities, and this award will support a new Bruker NanoWizard V in the Stanford Cell Sciences Imaging Facility (CSIF). Thanks to Christina Newcomb, Jonathan Mulholland, and David Lenzi of CSIF for the collaborative effort and AFOSR for supporting our proposal!
Happy new year! Danielle joined the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Macro Letters.