Perry Research Group

News and Announcements

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December 20th, 2021
Xianci Zeng

Congratulations to Xianci Zeng on winning a Department of Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Travel Award!

December 20th, 2021
Sarthak Saha

Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on winning a Department of Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Travel Award!

December 17th, 2021
2021 Pacifichem Logo

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Bioinspired Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the Pacifichem Meeting.

November 29th, 2021
Shuo Sui

Congratulations to Shuo Sui on the issuance of his second patent!

"Graphene-Based Electro-Microfluidic Devices and Methods for Protein Structural Analysis," S.L. Perry, S. Sui, US Patent No. 11,175,244, Nov. 16, 2021. [PDF]

November 11th, 2021
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Isaac Ramírez Marrero gave a talk on Materials Processing Using Complex Coacervation at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 10th, 2021
Xianci Zeng

Xianci Zeng gave a talk on Exploring the Effects of Osmolytes on Complex Coacervation at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 10th, 2021
Sarthak Saha
November 8th, 2021
Alexander Lawton

Alex Lawton presented a poster on the Effects of Osmolyte Concentrations on Complex Coacervate Systems at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 8th, 2021
Luke Boudreau
November 8th, 2021
Kat Nilov
November 8th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Thermodynamics and Molecular Engineering of Complex Coacervates in an all-female session on New Frontiers of Molecular Thermodynamics at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

October 29th, 2021
WWLP

Our work on temperature-stable vaccines was also highlighted in the local news!

October 29th, 2021
NSF

Check out this UMass Amherst News Highlight on our recently funded NSF DMREF grant to create temperature-stable vaccines!

October 26th, 2021
Sarthak Saha

Sarthak Saha gave an amazing G.R.A.S.S. Seminar today on Polymer based Microfluidics for Protein Structure Determination!

October 18th, 2021
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Fun times as Isaac Ramírez Marrero heads off to the NextProf Pathfinder Workshop at the University of Michigan!

October 17th, 2021
SeungBo Hong

Welcome to SeungBo Hong, a MS student who will be exploring the potential for bio-derived and biodegradable polymers for use in polyelectrolyte complex materials!

October 13th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry spoke on Molecular Engineering Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials as part of the 2021 Fall Polymer Event.

October 12th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry was honored to be the student invited seminar speaker for the Analytial Division in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University.

October 1st, 2021
NSF

So excited that our collaborative DMREF grant on A Computationally-driven Predictive Framework for Stabilizing Viral Therapies was funded by the NSF! We get to work with Prof. Caryn Heldt from Michigan Tech and Prof. Sapna Sarupria from the University of Minnesota!

October 1st, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk today on Microfluidics for High-Throughput Room-Temperature Crystallographic Screening at the CHESS 2030 Workshop on Ambient Crystallography.

September 27th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave her first in-person seminar since the start of the pandemic! Thanks to Lorenzo Mosca and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Rhode Island for hosting!

September 24th, 2021
Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy
September 19th, 2021
Yaozu Chen

Welcome to Yaozu Chen, a first year undergraduate in Chemical Engineering who is joining the lab to work on X-ray compatible microfluidics!

September 14th, 2021
Rachel Maher

Welcome to Rachel Maher, a sophomore in Chemical Engineering who is joining the lab to look at solvent effects on complex coacervates!

August 24th, 2021
Coacervation in Non-Aqueous Solvents

Check out the new paper that we published in collaboration with Prof. Ryan Hayward and his student Minjun Lee, formerly from UMass Polymer Science, and now from the University of Colorado Boulder. Coacervates without water!

"Complex Coacervation of Polymerized Ionic Liquids in Non-Aqueous Solvents," M. Lee, S.L. Perry, R.C. Hayward, ACS Polymers Au, (2021), 1(2), 100–106. [PDF]

August 17th, 2021
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero on being selected for the NextProf Pathfinder workshop for future faculty candidates!

August 5th, 2021
Pankaj Pandey

Welcome to Dr. Pankaj Pandey, a postdoctoral researcher who is joining the lab to work on novel coacervate materials and the encapsulation of antimicrobials!

August 3rd, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry had the chance to participate in the PMSE POLY Student Chapter Macromolecular Summer Seminar today, where she gave a seminar on Molecular Engineering of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials. Thanks to the awesome student organizers!

July 8th, 2021
Sure Shot

Check out this highlight article in ASEE PRISM on how our work in collaboration with Prof. Caryn Heldt's lab is contributing to overcomming the challenge of bringing vaccines from lab to arm.

June 14th, 2021
Mingjun Zhou

Mingjun Zhou gave a fabulous talk at the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium on Polymer-Nanoparticle Complex Coacervates!

June 14th, 2021
Veronika Panchenko

Welcome to Veronika Panchenko, a student from HCC who will be joining us to study the potential for using coacervates to sample environmental contaminants!

June 14th, 2021
Nicholas Bryant

Congratulations to Nicholas Bryant on accepting a position with MacDermid!

June 3rd, 2021
Sarthak Saha

Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on passing his prospectus!

May 20th, 2021
Yimin Sun

Best wishes to Yimin Sun, who will be joining WuXi STA as a researcher to work on oligonucleotides!

May 16th, 2021
Luke Boudreau

Welcome to Luke Boudreau, a rising senior who is joining the lab to study how polymer chemistry affects the physical properties of materials made from complex coacervates!

May 16th, 2021
Shannon McIntosh

Welcome to Shannon McIntosh, a rising senior who is joining the lab to study sequence effects in complex coacervation!

May 5th, 2021
Josh McGee

Josh McGee gave a fantastic keynote address at the Eighth Annual iCons Senior Exposition and Celebration!

May 5th, 2021
Hansen Tjo

Hansen Tjo highlighted his thesis work as part of the panel discussion at the Eighth Annual iCons Senior Exposition and Celebration!

May 5th, 2021
Coacervate Entanglement

Congratulations to Zoey Meng on the acceptance of her paper looking at the electrospinning of ultra-short polymers in coacervates!

"Electrospinning Fibers from Oligomeric Complex Coacervates: No Chain Entanglements Needed," X. Meng, Y. Du, Y. Liu, E.B. Coughlin, S.L. Perry, J.D. Schiffman, Macromolecules, (2021), 54, 5033-5042. [PDF]

April 18th, 2021
Crystallographic Fragment Screening

Congratulations to Shuo Sui, Sarthak Saha, Josh McGee, and Jonathan Selway on the acceptance of their paper to use microfluidics to enable crystallographic screening of drug targets, done in collaboration with scientists at Novartis, SLAC, and the APS!

"A Capillary-based Microfluidic Device Enables Primary High-throughput Room-temperature Crystallographic Screening," S. Sui, A. Mulichak, R. Kulathila, J. McGee,‡ D. Filiatreault, S. Saha, A. Cohen, J. Song, H. Hung, J. Selway, C. Kirby, O.K. Shrestha, W. Weihofen, M. Fodor, M. Xu, R. Chopra, S.L. Perry, Journal of Applied Crystallography, (2021), 54(4), 1034-1046. [PDF]

April 2nd, 2021
Josh McGee

Congratulations to Josh McGee, who just committed to join the PhD program in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University next fall!

March 29th, 2021
Elizabeth Voke

Congratulations to Perry Lab alumna Liz Voke having been awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Award!

March 29th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry had the chance to virtually visit the Department of Chemistry at the University of Santa Cruz today, where she gave a seminar on Molecular Engineering of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials. Thanks to Prof. Alexander Ayzner for the invitation!

March 23rd, 2021
Nick's MS Defense

Congratulations to Nicholas Bryant on successfully defending his MS thesis on Reverse Engineering and Replicating Fast-Setting Water-Based Coatings Using Complex Coacervates! Nick is the third MS student to graduate from the Perry Lab!

March 23rd, 2021
Josh McGee

Congratulations to Josh McGee having been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!

March 21st, 2021
Josh McGee

Check out this focus article on Josh McGee having won the Rising Researcher Award!

March 19th, 2021
Whitney Blocher McTigue

Congratulations to Whitney Blocher McTigue on having been awarded the 2020 Department of Chemical Engineering Best Dissertation Award!

March 17th, 2021
Yimin's MS Defense

Congratulations to Yimin Sun on successfully defending her MS thesis on Cryptic Materials and Coacervates! Yimin is the second MS student to graduate from the Perry Lab!

March 16th, 2021
Josh McGee

Check out the news highlight on Josh McGee and the other Fall 2020 UMass Amherst Rising Researchers!

March 16th, 2021
Whitney Blocher McTigue

Whitney Blocher McTigue gave a fantastic talk at the APS March Meetingthis afternoon on Biomacromolecules in Ternary Complex Coacervates!

March 12th, 2021
Alexander Lawton

Welcome to Alexander Lawton, a first year undergraduate who has joined our group to work on the encapsulation of biological molecules in complex coacervation!

March 5th, 2021
Hansen Tjo

Congratulations to Hansen Tjo, who just committed to join the PhD program in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton next fall!

February 18th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry had the chance to virtually visit the Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers University today, where she gave a seminar on Molecular Engineering of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials. Thanks to Prof. Benjamin Schuster for the invitation!

February 10th, 2021
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry had the chance to virtually visit the Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University today, where she gave a seminar on Molecular Engineering of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials. Thanks to Prof. Mo Jiang for the invitation!

February 5th, 2021
Conjugated Polyelectrolyte Complexes

Check out the new paper by Prof. Alex Ayzner and his group on the associative phase separation of conjugated polyelectrolytes! So excited that we were able to help with the rheology on this work.

"Salt-Induced Associative Phase Separation of π-Conjugated Polyelectrolytes Couples Photophysical and Mechanical Properties," A.R. Johnston, S.L. Perry, A.L. Ayzner, Chemistry of Materials, (2021) 33(4), 1116-1129. [PDF]

January 28th, 2021
Sarah Perry

The awesome review that Prof. Perry and Prof. Charles Sing wrote on the science of complex coacervation was just highlighted in the 2020 Soft Matter Most Popular themed collection!!!

"Recent Progress in the Science of Complex Coacervation," C.E. Sing, S.L. Perry, Soft Matter, (2020), 16, 2885-2914. [PDF]

January 28th, 2021
Whitney Blocher McTigue

Whitney's paper on the encapsulation and stabilization of viruses in coacervates was just highlighted in the 2020 Biomaterials Science Most Popular themed collection!!!

"Thermostabilization of Viruses via Complex Coacervation," X. Mi, W.C. Blocher McTigue, P.U. Joshi, M.K. Bunker, C.L. Heldt, S.L. Perry, Biomaterials Science, (2020), 8, 7082-7092. [PDF]

January 27th, 2021
Josh McGee

Tremendous congratulations to Josh McGee on being named a 2021 UMass Amherst Rising Researcher! This award recognizes exceptional accomplishments of undergraduate students who excel in research, scholarship, and creative activity.

January 16th, 2021
Bryan Chua

Check out this news story highlighting the work done by Perry lab alumnus Bryan Chua and Prof. Rachel Walker from the College of Nursing on a portable water purification system.

January 12th, 2021
Nicholas Bryant

Congratulations to Nicholas Bryant on having been awarded a Tillwick and Eldridge Teaching Assistant Award for his efforts in Senior Lab this past fall!