President Schill stopped by to meet some of our Ryan Fellows.

First paper from our lab SPIn Lab is not out in Chemistry of Materials ! Go check it out and learn about cholesteric liquid crystals of cellulose-based polymers ! pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.10…

after reading through 40+ years of research on chiral nematic cellulose materials and dabbling in polymer theory to interpret these papers, i’m excited to share the insights from these endeavors in my first SPIn Lab paper! pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.10…

And our paper made a cover ! Thanks to Nikuzo who designed and drew this beautiful cover art for us. Go check it out : Cover - pubs.acs.org/toc/cmatex/35/… Article - doi.org/10.1021/acs.ch…

In honor of Earth Day 2024, with the theme of Planet vs. Plastics, I'm sharing infographics I made for a science communication course that explore some of the materials science challenges associated with making plastics more sustainable

I am Gordon Research Conferences Bioinspired Materials GRC this week in Les Diablerets !🇨🇭 Simona Fine is also representing our amazing team SPIn Lab : as a second year grad student (!!!) she gave her talk at the GRS and knocked it out of the park ! 😎 Stop by her poster #13 on Tuesday! 🍀

I had an amazing time in Les Diablerets at the Bioinspired Materials Gordon Research Conferences meeting brilliant researchers, learning about bioinspired systems through multiple scientific lenses, and presenting my research in a GRS talk and GRC poster! First conference ✅

New publication from Simona Fine and SPIn Lab is now out in ACS Macro Journals Biomacromolecules ! We elucidate how polymer chain mobility affects cholesteric liquid crystal self-assembly kinetics and optical properties. doi.org/10.1021/acs.bi…

thrilled that this paper was published in Biomacromolecules today! we studied how the time-resolved appearance of macroscopic structural color in cellulose-based liquid crystals reflects the nano- and microscale cholesteric self-assembly kinetics pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

come check out poster #71 at Polymer Women Empowerment & Research Conference tomorrow to hear about structurally-colored cellulosic materials and composites!

There is still time for undergraduates to apply for MICRO this year and conduct paid research with a lab Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) DMSE at MIT and Northwestern! Applications close on 8/5. Help us spread the word . mse-micro.net/take-action

And our latest publication by Simona Fine made the supplemental cover of ACS Macro Journals Biomacromolecules! Simona designed and executed this cover herself ! Learn more about this work: doi.org/10.1021/acs.bi…

becoming a PhD candidate ✅

New group photo just dropped👻 Happy Halloween!

It was so much fun meeting these students and sharing our work with them. A huge thank you to all Robotic Matter Lab members for their thoughtful demos, & Maddie Briggs, Kamat Lab, Simona Fine and SPIn Lab for partnering with us to show off awesome work from our NU MRSEC!

I'm excited to be attending my first Materials Research Society (MRS) meeting and can't wait to share my research on structurally-colored cellulose composites on Thursday (1:45-2 pm, SB11.11.01) #F24MRS

my first trip to Seattle for #S25MRS has been a blast so far and I'm thrilled to be presenting my work on structurally-colored alternatives to plastic tomorrow (9:15-9:30 am, SU02.08.03)

We’re so proud of Charmaine for presenting her work on tunable, structurally-colored films at the 2025 Undergraduate Research & Arts Exposition🪲🦋 As the spring quarter wraps up, we’d like to thank our wonderful undergrads for all of their hard work🫶 Have a great summer!

How can we make fashion more sustainable? Northwestern Engineering’s Cécile Chazot is developing recyclable polymers that could transform how textiles are made and reused. Read more in this Northwestern Magazine profile: spr.ly/601046SY6 Cecile Chazot 🇨🇵🇺🇦 SPIn Lab