Jussara Alves Penido (she/her)

Biographical Statement

Jussara is a Chemistry PhD student from the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil working with Prof. Watson Loh. She spent a year at UMass collaborating on a project to study the incorporation of proteins into complex coacervate-core micelles for use in the context of organic solvents. She completed her undergraduate and master's degrees at the Federal University of Ouro Preto in Brazil with a six-month internship at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. During her time there, she participated in projects that involved investigating the partitioning of different molecules in Aqueous Two-Phase Systems and exploring the liquid-liquid phase diagrams for these systems. Apart from research, Jussara enjoys reading, playing board games, traveling, and discovering new places.

Dr. Jussara Alves Penido successfully defended her PhD dissertation on Expanding the Domain of Polymer Coacervates: Multiphase Systems and Coacervates in Organic Solvents on December 9th, 2025. Dr. Alves Penido was the ninth PhD student to graduate from the our group and has now rejoined the group as a postdoc!

Honors and Awards

Publications

1. J.A. Penido, S.P. Le, A. Varadarajan, S. Thayumanavan, S.L. Perry, W. Loh, "Complex Coacervate Emulsions as a Strategy to Stabilize Enzymes for Catalysis in Organic Solvents," ACS Macro Letters (2026), 15(1), 143-150. [PDF]
2. J.A. Penido, W. Loh, "Miscibility and Phase Behavior in Bulk and Micellar Systems of Surfactant-Polymer Coacervate Mixtures" Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, (2025), 695, 137826. [PDF]