Check out this UMass Engineering News Story about Manu Menezes having being named a 2026 HSF Scholar by the Hispanic Scholars Fund!
Congratulations to Xianci Zeng on having accepted a position as a Scientist at PCI!
Check out Sarthak Saha's new perspective article on fluid handling in ultra-thin microfluidic devices!
"Advancement in Fluid Handling Strategies for Ultra-Thin Microfluidic Devices," S. Saha, S.L. Perry, Biomicrofluidics, (2026), 20, 041301. [PDF]
So excited that our collaborative paper with Prof. Caryn Heldt's lab at Michigan Tech on how sequence effects in polypeptide complex coacervates can be leveraged to improve the thermostability of virus formulations was just accepted for publication in Biomacromolecules!
"Polypeptide Sequence Effects on Virus Thermostability in Complex Coacervate Formulations," P.U. Joshi, C. Decker, A. Sathyavageeswaran, X. Zeng, H. Liu, M. Kheirvari, E. Tumban, L. Manchester, I. Tohidian, E. Barbieri, S.L. Perry, C. Heldt, Biomacromolecules, (2026), (accepted).
Congratulations to our collaborator Prof. Charles Sing on having been elected Chair for the 2030 Gordon Research Conference on Polymer Physics!
Dr. Jussara Alves Penido presented a poster on "How Coacervate Microenvironments Modulate Enzymatic Activity and Stability: Effects of Ionic Strength, Hydration, Temperature, and Dry-Wet Cycles" at both the GRS and GRC on Polymer Physics.
Dr. Júlia Bonesso Sabadini presented a poster on how "Affinity Controls Multiphase Complex Coacervate Formation" at both the GRS and GRC on Polymer Physics.
Congratulations to Dr. Arvind Sathyavageeswaran for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on Designing Peptide-Based Complex Coacervates for the Encapsulation of Globular Proteins! Dr. Sathyavageeswaran is the 11th PhD student to graduate from the Perry Lab!
Congratulations to Dr. Abhik Manna on winning a Best Poster prize at the RNA Therapeutics Conference for his work on Microfluidic System for Site-Specific Labelling of RNA!
Dr. Alaleh Vaghef-Koodehi presented a poster on her work on Overcoming Post-Transcriptional Stability Bottlenecks Using Electrokinetic Microfluidic Purification at the RNA Therapeutics Conference.
Congratulations to Manu Menezes on being named a 2026 HSF Scholar by the Hispanic Scholars Fund!
Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy presented a poster on his work on A Microfluidic System for Walking-Based RNA Synthesis and Electrokinetic Purification at the Advances in Genome Technology Development Conference.
Dr. Abhik Manna presented a poster on his work on Automated Microfluidic Platform for Site-Specific RNA Labeling at the Advances in Genome Technology Development Conference.
Dr. Alaleh Vaghef-Koodehi presented both a flash talk and a poster on her work on Continuous RNA Purification Enabled by Electrokinetic Microfluidic Transport at the Advances in Genome Technology Development Conference.
Congratulations to Arvind Sathyavageeswaran, who will be joining the lab of Prof. Guillaume Duclos at Brandeis University as a postdoc to work on active matter!
Congratulations to group alumna Kat Nilov, who is joining the catalyst startup company GreenCat as Chief of Staff!
Congratulations to Jina Lee, who will be joining the Masters of Engineering in Bioengineering program at UC Berkeley this fall!
Congratulations to Dr. Jussara Alves Penido on having been selected to attend the Future Faculty Workshop being held at Florida State University!
Congratulations to Dr. Alaleh Vaghef-Koodehi on having been awarded an UMass Amherst Postdoctoral Research Organization Professional Development Award!
Congratulations to Dr. Abhik Manna on having been awarded an UMass Amherst Postdoctoral Research Organization Professional Development Award!
Congratulations to Dr. Abhik Manna on having been selected to attend the Future Faculty Workshop being held at Florida State University!
Baktha Kannadasan presented a CBI Chalk Talk on Addressing Challenges in Structural Biology Through Microfluidics.
Congratulations to Greg Donovan, former group alumnus on having defended his PhD dissertation on "Biosensor-enabled High-Throughput Analysis of Terpene Synthesis," work that he in the lab of Prof. Jerome Fox in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder!
Congratulations to Dr. Xianci Zeng for successfully defending her PhD dissertation on Bioinspired Strategies for the Encapsulation and Stabilization of Biomacromolecules! Dr. Zeng is the 10th PhD student to graduate from the Perry Lab!
Congratulations to Adhithi Varadarajan who will be joining the PM Group as a Process Engineer after graduation!
Welcome back to Dr. Jussara Alves Penido who is now joining our group as a postdoctoral researcher!
Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero on the publication of his review article on design rules in polyelectrolyte complexes!
"Fundamentals and Design Rules of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials: A Comprehensive Review," I.A. Ramírez Marrero, S.L. Perry, Chemical Reviews, (2026), 126(9), 5413-5443. [PDF]
Congratulations to Kiersten O'Connell who will studying abroad in Beijing, China this fall!
Welcome to Maille O'Neil, sophomore Chemical Engineering student who is joining the lab to work on polymer-surfactant complex coacervates.
Adhithi Varadarajan presented her honors thesis research on Chymotrypsin Activity in Peptide-Based Coacervates at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference!
Mazin Hussein presented his honors thesis research on Design and Fabrication of an Electrochemical Cell for X-ray Synchrotron Studies at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference!
Rayyan Khan presented his research on Investigating the Effects of Salt Concentration and pH on Biopolymer Coacervation at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference!
Welcome to Jonas Theis, a first-year Chemical Engineering student who is joining the lab to work on the encpasulation and stabilization of biomacromolecules in complex coacervates.
Congratulations to Mayayi Izzo on having been awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
Congratulations to Logan Chen on having been awarded honorable mention in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship competition!
Congratulations to Logan Chen, Sarthak Saha, and all of our collaborators on the publication of our new paper that uses electrically-actuated valves to facilitate sample preparation for protein crystallography!
"LEGO-Inspired Electrically-Actuated Microfluidics for On-Chip Protein Crystallization and In-Situ X-ray Crystallography," S. Saha, L. Chen, G. Budziszewski, S. Koprek, K. Seifert, A.E. Cohen, S. Russi, S.E.J. Bowman, S.L. Perry, Lab on a Chip, (2026), 26, 3213-3228. [PDF]
Welcome to Gabriel Stevens, a sophomore in Chemical Engineering who is joining the lab to work on the encpasulation and stabilization of biomacromolecules in complex coacervates.
Congratulations to Faviola Villariny-Rosado on having passed her prospectus! She is now an official PhD Candidate!
Congratulations to Mayayi Izzo, who will be joining the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University in the fall!
Congratulations to Arjun Iyer, who will be joining the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia in the fall!
Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero, Emily Ng, and all of our collaborators on the publication of our new paper on the effects of copolymer chemistry on the glass transitions in polyelectrolyte complexes!
"Effect of Copolymer Chemistry on the Humidity- and Temperature-Dependent Mechanical Properties and Structure of Polyelectrolyte Complexes," I.A. Ramírez Marrero, E. Ng, N. Kaiser, B. von Vacano, R. Konradi, A.J. Crosby, S.L. Perry, Macromolecules, 2026, 59(9), 5219-5232. [PDF]
Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Glass Transitions in Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the APS Global Physics Summit in Denver, CO.
Congratulations to Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy on having been awarded 2nd place for his GRASS talk on Microfluidic Platform for On-Demand Synthesis of Ultrapure RNA with Site-Specific Modifications at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day!
Dr. Abhik Manna presented a poster on Microfluidic System for Site-specific Labelling of RNA at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day.
Manu Menezes and Dr. Alaleh Vaghef Koodehi presented a poster on Towards Scalable RNA Purification Using Electrokinetic Microfluidics at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day.
Faviola Villariny-Rosado presented a poster on Exploring the Electrochemical Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day.
Prof. Perry gave a seminar on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials in the Department of Chemistry at Georgia State University.
Faviola Villariny-Rosado presented a poster on Exploring the Electrochemical Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at the Daniel J. Riccio Jr. College of Engineering Graduate Research Symposium.
Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero, Louisa Coughlin, Emily Ng, and all of our collaborators on the publication of our new paper on the effects of polymer chain length, charged group, and backbone chemistry on the glass transitions in polyelectrolyte complexes!
"Developing Design Rules for Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials: Role of Polyelectrolyte Length, Charged Group, and Backbone," I.A. Ramírez Marrero, R. Ghosh, L.M. Coughlin, W.W. Wong, E. Ng, E. Kellner, M. Redder, N. Kaiser, B. von Vacano, R. Konradi, E.B. Coughlin, S.L. Perry, Macromolecules, (2026), 59(8), 5017-5030. [PDF]
Welcome back to Dr. Júlia Bonesso Sabadini who is now joining our group as a postdoctoral researcher!
Congratulations to Dr. Sarthak Saha on being awarded the 2024 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Best Dissertation Award!
Congratulations to Arvind Sathyavageeswaran, Mayayi Izzo, Júlia Bonesso Sabadini, Jacob Belden and Umme Habeeba on the publication of their new paper on the effects of peptide sequence on the incorporation of proteins into complex coacervates!
"Tuning Protein Uptake through Charge and Hydrophobicity in Peptide-Based Complex Coacervates," A. Sathyavageeswaran, M. Izzo, J. Bonesso Sabadini, U. Habeeba, J.T. Belden, S.L. Perry, Biomacromolecules, (2026), 27(4), 2795-2806. [PDF]
Congratulations to Xi (Ryan) Hao, who defended his PhD in Macromolecular Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech in September 2025 and just started a position as an industrial engineer at Uniquetex!
Congratulations to Kiersten O'Connell who will be participating in a co-op with Abbvie this spring/summer!
Congratulations to Mingjun Zhou and Nick Holmlund on the publication of their new paper on forming complex coacervates using brushy nanoparticles!
"Complex Coacervates of Linear Polymers and Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles," M. Zhou, N. Homlund, S.L. Perry, M. Santore, Macromolecules, (2026), 59(3), 1679-1693. [PDF]
Welcome to Allison Barrett, a first year undergraduate in Chemical Engineering who is joining us to study the effect of complex coacervation on enzyme activity!
