NEWS — 2025
Vic successfully passed the Chemical Engineering qualifying exam! Congratulations, Vic!
Alana’s collaboration with Nucleus at Sarafan ChEM-H was featured in their newsletter. Read more about “How to crystallize spaghetti”, then check out our recent manuscript in Biophysical Journal!
Congratulations to Amanda Rosario, who was selected for the 2026 American Physical Society DPOLY Undergraduate Travel Award! This award will support Amanda as a first-time attendee and presenter at the 2026 APS Global Physics Summit. Congrats Amanda!
Congratulations to Mike Burroughs, who started a new position as an Analytical Scientist at Thintronics! Mike is leading the materials characterization arm of R&D, and he is excited to address sustainability concerns with the AI boom through a materials science lens by redesigning interconnect insulators. Congrats Mike!
The Mai Lab was featured as part of a “Where are they now?” check-in with AIChE’s 35 under 35! Read more here and consider contributing to support the future of chemical engineering.
We are excited to launch a few new projects through the Sustainability Accelerator at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability! The Mai Lab is leading a biomining effort for rare-earth elements, and we’re excited to collaborate on projects that are engineering new sustainable materials using mycelium biocomposites and bio-based monomers.
Welcome to our summer researchers!! Joaquin Iglesias is a current Stanford undergraduate student joining us through the Department of Chemical Engineering Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU); Amanda Rosario 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 Xinhui Li is a student at Peking University who joined us through the School of Engineering’s Undergraduate Visiting Research (UGVR) Program. Thanks to Michelle, Eleanor, and Alana for their mentorship!
Congratulations to the Class of 2025!! Marina completed her Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering and Lisa completed her B.S. in Chemical Engineering. We are so proud of and grateful for everything they’ve both done at Stanford. Hats off to their contributions to the lab!
Michelle was selected for a Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (SIGF) affiliated with Sarafan ChEM-H! The SIGF Program is a group of 100 endowed, three-year fellowships awarded to current doctoral students engaged in the pursuit of questions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. Michelle will collaborate with Prof. Soichi Wakatsuki (Professor of Photon Science and of Structural Biology) to harness structural insights in the design of stimuli-responsive protein actuators. Congratulations, Michelle!
We are excited to officially welcome Vic Hempstead (Chemical Engineering PhD student) to the lab! Vic plans to explore new self-assembly mechanisms of protease-responsive elastin-like polypeptides.
Michelle’s review article exploring Biomolecular Actuators for Soft Robots is featured on the front cover of Chemical Reviews! We highlight the history and new frontiers for biomolecules as tools to actuate movement in soft robots. We envision this resource being useful for budding roboticists and biomolecular engineers to consider unconventional stimuli-responsive mechanisms.
Eleanor was awarded the 2025 Department of Chemical Engineering Mason Fellowship! The Mason Fellowship recognizes one graduate student who provided leadership to the student community and who went above and beyond to serve the department outside of their normal studies and research. Congratulations Eleanor on this tremendous and well-deserved honor!
The 2025 Stanford Alumni Association Awards are out! Congratulations to Brendan and Eleanor for receiving the Community Impact Award & Lisa Nieman for receiving the Award of Excellence!
Several undergraduate researchers from the Mai Lab have decided to pursue graduate studies this autumn! Lisa Nieman will attend Northwestern University (Chemical Engineering PhD program), Paola Urbina-Ramos will attend Princeton University (Chemical Engineering PhD program), Tianyi Hu will attend the University of Michigan (Robotics PhD program), and Ava Conyer will attend New York University (Chemical Engineering MS program, NYU Dean’s Scholarship). Congratulations!!
Congratulations to Mike for winning a Best Poster Award from the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering (PMSE)! Mike’s poster featured his recent work on hybrid synthesis of bottlebrush DNA polymers for direct visualization at fluid–solid interfaces. This work was also highlighted in the Sci-Mix poster session!
We are excited to welcome incoming postdoc Carlos Díaz-Marín, who will be co-advised with Prof. Xiaolin Zheng in Mechanical Engineering through the Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship! Carlos will join us in July to explore the physical interactions of ion-binding proteins and rare earth elements.
Danielle and Alana hosted Dr. Bizan Balzer (University of Freiburg) as part of our International Research Exploration Seed Grant. Dr. Balzer shared his work in the Shriram Basement Seminar series, toured Stanford’s shared instrumentation facilities, and enjoyed opportunities to interact with researchers across campus!
Eleanor and Mike received Bio-X Travel Awards to support travel to the APS March Meeting in Anaheim (Eleanor) and ACS Spring Meeting in San Diego (Mike). Congrats!
Marina defended her dissertation on "Leveraging Sequence Repetition to Engineer Calcium-Responsive Protein Polymers”! Dr. Chang is the first student in the lab to earn a PhD. We are incredibly grateful for her tremendous leadership, mentorship, creativity, organization, and drive throughout her graduate studies—she is a true pillar of the Mai Lab. We are all excited to celebrate her contributions & accomplishments!!
Danielle shared our work on “Decoding Repetitive Proteins to Engineer Stimuli-Responsive Biopolymers” with the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia, Department of Physics at the University of San Diego (hosted by Beckman Scholar Katarina Matic), Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, Department of Macromolecular Science & Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. Thanks for great questions, discussions, and ideas!
Brendan, Marina, and Danielle attended the 2025 Peptide Materials Gordon Research Seminar & Conference in Pomona! Thanks to the organizers for featuring our work throughout the GRS and the opportunity to catch up with Danielle’s PhD advisor, Charles Schroeder!
Danielle was included in the 2024-2025 BASF Distinguished Lecture Series at Wayne State University. It is an honor to be included among fantastic speakers across chemical engineering!
Our 2025 lab retreat is in the books! After a weekend in the woods, we are refreshed and excited for the new year!
