UConn IMS

Ki Chon Named Board of Directors Distinguished Professor

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Ki Chon
Dr. Ki Chon

Dr. Ki H. Chon, the Krenicki Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, is a pioneer in the field of biosignal processing and wearable devices. As the inaugural head of the Biomedical Engineering department from 2014 to 2022, Dr. Chon’s leadership was instrumental in driving substantial growth in both faculty recruitment and research funding, securing a more than $17 million increase in annual research allocations.

Having earned his undergraduate engineering degree from UConn, Dr. Chon has remained dedicated to advancing his alma mater’s stature in the global academic community. His research has led to the development of a life-saving wearable device capable of predicting seizures in divers—a breakthrough that underscores his commitment to translating academic research into practical, real-world applications. This innovation has not only secured the backing of the U.S. Navy but also holds the potential to transform safety protocols in diving operations worldwide.

Dr. Chon’s scholarly contributions are extensive, with an impressive tally of over 220 refereed journal articles and 13 U.S. patents granted, alongside substantial federal research funding totaling more than $29 million. His work on real-time detection of atrial fibrillation and other physiological anomalies via mobile and wearable technology platforms has positioned him at the forefront of biomedical engineering.

Dr. Chon has demonstrated a profound commitment to educational innovation. He has developed three new courses, including Junior Design and Biomedical Signal Processing, which have significantly enhanced the biomedical engineering curriculum at UConn. These courses not only prepare students for real-world engineering challenges but also ensure that they are well-versed in the latest technological advancements and methodologies.

Beyond his technical and academic achievements, Dr. Chon has played a pivotal role in enhancing the department’s diversity and inclusion efforts. His recruitment strategy led to the appointment of UConn’s first female African American Professor in the College of Engineering, marking a significant step forward in fostering an inclusive academic environment.

As a fellow of six major societies and a distinguished member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, Dr. Chon’s contributions to the field of biomedical engineering are widely recognized. His leadership and vision have not only elevated the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UConn but have also had a profound impact on the broader scientific and engineering communities.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to research, teaching, and service, Dr. Ki H. Chon is an exemplary candidate for the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor award. His ongoing dedication to the field and his alma mater makes him a deserving recipient of this prestigious honor.

Three Students from Duduta Group Awarded NASA CTSGC Fellowships

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Duduta group members surround logo of NASA CT
Dominic Flores (top), Sahib Sandhu (bottom left) and Alexander White (bottom right) from the Duduta Group

NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium (CTSGC) is a federally mandated grant, internship, and scholarship program funded as a part of NASA Education. Formed in 1991 by Trinity College, University of Connecticut, University of New Haven, and University of Hartford, NASA CTSGC encourages broader participation in NASA research programs.
Three graduate students from Prof. Mihai “Mishu” Duduta’s group (Dominic Flores, Sahib Sandhu and Alexander White) have won NASA Connecticut Space Consortium Graduate Fellowships of $10,000 each to support research at the interface of soft and space robotics.

Dominic Flores was awarded $10,000 for his research proposal entitled Dielectric Elastomer Actuator Grippers with Sensing Capabilities for Space Applications.

Sahib Sandhu was awarded $10,000 for his research proposal entitled Space ready deployable composites based on compliant capacitors.

Alexander White was awarded $10,000 for his research proposal entitled Spacecraft Landing System using Soft Tunable Tensegrity Structures.

IMS congratulates Dominic, Sahib, and Alexander!

Alex Asandei Awarded 6th Consecutive Single-PI NSF Grant

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Alexandru Asandei
Dr. Alexandru Asandei

With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry program in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemistry, Associate Professor of Chemistry and faculty member in the IMS Polymer Program Alexandru D. Asandei,  is developing new methods for the precise synthesis of novel fluorinated polymeric materials with complex architectures, as well as exploring the re/upcycling of commercial fluoropolymers.

Fluoropolymers are contrasted to conventional polymers with even simple homo/random fluoropolymers exhibiting outstanding chemical, thermal and flame resistance, biocompatibility, and unique electronic properties which render them important in high-end applications such as battery, aerospace, sensing, medical device, building, construction, and automotive industries. However, the chemical tools for the precise synthesis of analogous complex fluoropolymer materials (blocks, grafts etc.) are lacking. Thus, the project goals include the development of the required novel chemistry, to explore hitherto unknown and unavailable materials with potentially superior properties and applications leading to the associated societal benefits.

While technologically important, fluoropolymers suffer from a number of factors that have hampered new developments. These factors include a combination of very low monomer reactivity, very high propagating polymer chain end reactivity, complex and often hazardous laboratory setups, and the general lack of appropriate polymer chemistry tools (initiators, catalysts, coupling agents etc.). Accordingly, fluoroalkenes remain some of the most challenging monomers for both controlled radical and coordination polymerizations, where manipulation of molecular weight, polydispersity and architecture/sequence are of paramount importance for the emerging properties. In addition, current re/upcycling of industrial fluoropolymers remain minimal.

The proposed research aims at developing innovative and environmentally conscious chemistry (e.g. water, visible light catalysis etc.), to overcome the above deficiencies, and significantly enlarges the fluoro, organic and polymer synthesis toolbox, while providing access to novel fluoropolymer materials. This includes the elaboration of novel, functional, universal radical initiating systems that enable both controlled radical fluoro/regular alkene polymerizations and chain end derivatizations/couplings towards the synthesis of multiblock copolymers, in-depth mechanistic investigations on optimizing polymerization parameters and understanding the structure/property/function in the resulting fluoropolymers, as well as exploration of the coordination polymerization of fluoroalkenes, and the up/recycling of industrial fluoropolymers.

The project provides training and education to undergraduate and graduate students, including minority and female students, in synthetic organic, organometallic, and polymer chemistry. The project also has strong industrial impact, important outreach activities, and the results will be broadly disseminated in the scientific literature and national and international meetings.

UConn Signs Contract With Air Force Research Laboratory

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from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering

A robotic welding arms in operation.
A robotic welding arms in operation.

UConn recently received $10.5 million from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for research on high-temperature materials and manufacturing processes. The funding will allow a team of seven faculty members from Materials Science and Engineering (Professors Aindow, Alpay, Frame, and Hebert), Civil and Environmental Engineering (Professor Kim), Mechanical Engineering (Professor Bilal), and Chemistry (Professor Suib) along with post-doctoral associates and graduate assistants to address challenges in the manufacturing of aerial systems intended to fly at high speed. Much of the four-year research project will focus on welding-related challenges for high-temperature metallic materials that are used for structures exposed to high speeds. The UConn team will combine experimental and theoretical approaches to help their collaborator, RTX, advance their manufacturing solutions. Additional project tasks address the behavior of non-metallic high-temperature materials under different processing and service conditions, additive manufacturing of high-temperature refractory metals, and the design and processing of metamaterials. These metamaterials are designed to change heat- and electro-magnetic fields in and around structures and are considered to advance the thermal management of high-temperature structures.

The new AFRL project comes at the heels of previous and ongoing AFRL projects for UConn approaching $30 million that involve over 15 faculty members from the Colleges of Engineering and Liberal Arts and Sciences with dozens of graduate students and post-doctoral associates. Covering research from functional materials and photonics to casting, welding, and additive manufacturing, the UConn team has established itself as a valuable partner for the AFRL and key industry partners, for example, Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace.

Professor Rainer Hebert says of the contract, “The AFRL funding enables the UConn team to pursue materials processing research with a strong focus on industry and government relevance. Students and post-doctoral associates working on the project see firsthand how their research translates to industry. This insight will help in preparing a workforce that can pursue research excellence with a keen sense of the needs and constraints of industrial applications.”

12 UConn Faculty Elected to CASE

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CASE 2024 new members from IMS
(l to r) Drs. Bodhisattwa Chaudhuri, Yupeng Chen, Avinash Dongare, Liisa T. Kuhn, and David Pierce are among the 12 UConn faculty selected as members of CASE for 2024.

The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE), an organization of academic and industry professionals who advise the state government on matters of science and industry, announced the election of 35 new members in 2024. Twelve of these new members — over a third — are UConn faculty. Nearly half of those selected from UConn are members of the Institute of Materials Science (IMS).

  • Bodhisattwa Chaudhuri, Professor, UConn School of Pharmacy
  • Yupeng Chen, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UConn College of Engineering
  • Avinash Dongare, Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, UConn College of Engineering 
  • Liisa T. Kuhn, Professor and Associate Department Head, Biomedical Engineering, UConn Health 
  • David Pierce, Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering, UConn College of Engineering

All new members will be introduced at the Academy’s 49th Annual Meeting and Dinner at the Woodwinds in Branford, CT on May 21, 2024. IMS congratulates all the new CASE members.

Read the full story at UConn Today

Jessica Rouge Empowers Underrepresented Women in Science

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Jessica Rouge (far left) with the members of her lab (UConn Photo).

Before sunrise, Jessica Rouge used to leap out of bed in the glow of darkness and race to the Charles River with her teammates for crew practice.  

A few hours later, the future UConn associate chemistry professor would run back to Boston College for her morning science class: she was among a small group of female students pursuing a B.S. degree in biochemistry. 

Rouge still sprints, but in a different way: now, she doubles as teacher, mother to two toddlers, mentor to young scientists, hobby musician and soon she will potentially add another role to her repertoire: science entrepreneur. 

Rouge’s lab group, which is more than 50 percent female, “seeks to understand how enzymes and nucleic acids can be used in new ways to engineer highly specific and targeted responses in chemical and biological systems. Specifically, her team is interested in developing new chemical strategies for assembling catalytic RNA sequences at nanoparticle surfaces for sensing, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications.” 

Rouge was a 2022-2023 recipient of the SPARK Technology Commercialization Fund, a program that helps shepherd the process of translating invention to entrepreneurial success. 

With the preclinical data she was able to secure using the Spark Fund resources, Rouge is hopeful that she and her collaborators are close to licensing her technology. 

Read the full story at UConn Today

Collaborative Research to Develop Filament-Based Hydrogels is Cover for JACS

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Cover of JACS March 6, 2024 issue featuring Yao Lin etal. researchIn a collaborative effort, researchers from the University of Connecticut (led by Profs. Yao Lin, VJ Kumar and Xudong Yao) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (led by Prof. Jianjun Cheng) have made an advance in the rational design of synthetic polypeptides to develop filament-based hydrogels. The work, conceptualized and realized by the graduate students Tianjian Yang (UConn) and Tianrui Xue (UIUC), has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and featured as the cover of the March 6 issue.

Building on the recent advancement of autoaccelerated ring-opening polymerization of amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides (NCAs), this study strategically explores a series of random copolymers comprising multiple amino acids, aiming to elucidate the core principles governing gelation pathways of these purpose-designed copolypeptides. The team found that the selection of amino acids steered both the morphology of fibril superstructures and their assembly kinetics, subsequently determining their potential to form sample-spanning networks. Importantly, the viscoelastic properties of the resulting supramolecular hydrogels can be tailored according to the specific copolypeptide composition through modulations in filament densities and lengths. The findings enhance our understanding of directed self-assembly in high molecular weight synthetic copolypeptides, offering valuable insights for the development of synthetic fibrous networks and biomimetic supramolecular materials with custom-designed properties.

The research was supported by NSF grants awarded to Yao Lin at UConn (DMR 1809497 and 2210590) and Jianjun Cheng at UIUC (CHE 1905097).

Nguyen Lab Explores Benefits of Using Microneedle Arrays for Vaccine Delivery

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from UConn Today

Thanh Nguyen, center, is pictured here with members of his 2022-23 lab.
Thanh Nguyen, center, is pictured here with members of his 2022-23 lab.

In rural areas, especially in developing countries, the long distance to a medical facility may hinder a population from getting vaccinations, and especially booster doses.

Vaccines—for everything from influenza to COVID-19 to pneumococcal diseases—are stored at a low temperature for stability and are typically administrated through a hypodermic needle and syringe from a health care professional.

“What if we were able to mail people vaccines that don’t need refrigeration and they could apply them to their own skin like a bandage?” asked Thanh Nguyen, associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at the University of Connecticut. “And what if we could easily vaccinate people—once—where they wouldn’t need a booster? We could potentially eradicate polio, measles, rubella, and COVID-19.”

The answer, Nguyen believes, is administrating vaccines through a programmable microneedle array patch with a novel process he is developing at his lab at UConn.

By adhering a nearly painless, 1-centimeter-square biodegradable patch to the skin, a person can receive a preprogrammed delivery of highly-concentrated vaccines in powder form—over months—and eliminate the need for boosters. “The primary argument is that getting vaccines and boosters is a pain,” Nguyen said. “You have to go back two or three times to get these shots. With the microneedle platform, you put it on once, and it’s done. You have your vaccine and you have your boosters. You don’t have to go back to the doctor or hospital.”  

This month, UConn’s Institute of Materials Science received a three-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support Nguyen’s research on “Single-Administration Self-boosting Microneedle Platform for Vaccines and Therapeutics.” The project’s goal is to develop a low-cost manufacturing process.   

The Nguyen Research Group has already been working to thermally-stabilize vaccines and other therapeutics so they can stay inside the skin for a long period. In 2020, Nature Biomedical Engineering published a study by Nguyen and his colleagues reporting that, in rats, microneedles loaded with a clinically available vaccine (Prevnar-13) against a bacterium provided similar immune protection as multiple bolus injections.   

“We’ve been able to show this technology is safe and effective in the small animal model, but now the question is, how do we translate it into the commercialized stage and make it useful to the end user, which is the human,” he said.   

With support from the Gates Foundation, Nguyen will be able to test his microneedle platform on a larger animal—a pig, which has skin similar to humans. And if the results are similar, Nguyen predicts this technology could be manufactured, at an affordable cost, enabling both domestic and global health impact.

Nguyen’s microneedle platform also caught the attention of the United States Department of Agriculture. In September, the USDA: Research, Education, and Economics division awarded Nguyen with a two-year grant for a study titled “Delivery of FMDV Protein Antigens Using a Programmable Transdermal Microneedle System.” 

The Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV) is a highly contagious disease that affects the health of livestock such as cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. When an outbreak occurs, the disease leaves affected animals weakened and unable to produce meat and milk. FMDV causes production losses and hardships for farmers and ranchers, and has serious impacts on livestock trade.

And while vaccines exist, like with humans, boosters are required to keep the vaccine effective.   

“USDA is interested in the technology because the patch will be able to deliver the initial dose and subsequent doses, or boosters, to animals without the need for rounding up and handling multiple animals at once,” Nguyen explained. “This decreases stress on the animals and increases safety for the animals and their handlers.”

The microneedle platform is among the latest applications the Nguyen Research Group is exploring in the arena of vaccine/drug delivery, tissue regenerative engineering, “smart” piezoelectric materials, electronic implants, and bioelectronics. Since joining the College of Engineering in 2016, Nguyen has discovered a method of sending electric pulses through a biodegradable polymer to assist with cartilage regeneration; he’s designed a powerful biodegradable ultrasound device that could make brain cancers more treatable; and he used microneedle patches to deliver antibody therapies, which have been proven successful in treating HIV, autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, and certain types of cancer.  

Christina Tamburro, post-award grants and contracts specialist for UConn’s Institute of Materials Science said IMS is grateful to both the Gates Foundation and USDA for supporting Professor Nguyen’s drug delivery research.  

“This is a wonderful application of material science and this is what we’re all about. Ultimately, this is going to save lives and it can’t get better than that,” she said.

Antigoni Konstantinou Receives 2023-2024 GE Fellowship for Excellence

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Ph.D. Student Antigoni Konstantinou
IMS Materials Science Program Ph.D. candidate Antigoni Konstantinou

The College of Engineering recently announced the recipients of its General Electric Fellowship for Excellence.  The award was established to recognize the excellence of current graduate students and to facilitate their completion of the Ph.D. program.  Fellows are selected for their outstanding track records in research and professional service in the areas of advanced materials, manufacturing, and energy.  Antigoni Konstantinou, an Institute of Materials Science (IMS) Materials Science Program Ph.D. student, has been named a recipient of this honor.

Ms. Konstantinou has exhibited academic excellence in both research and leadership.  She currently serves as president of the 2023-2024 e-board for the John Lof Leadership Academy (JLLA). From this position, she empowers UConn’s graduate student community by nurturing essential leadership skills, especially for women in STEM. She is also a former Secretary of the UConn Chapter of the Materials Research Society (MRS).

Since joining the IMS Materials Science Ph.D. program in Spring 2021, Antigoni has been working with advisor Prof. Yang Cao and his Electrical Insulation Research Center (EIRC) utilizing materials preparation and electrical engineering techniques to develop nanostructured insulation materials to protect high-voltage electric motors from high electric fields. This research bridges Materials Science with Electrical Engineering.

IMS and the EIRC congratulate Antigoni on this well-deserved honor.

Xueju “Sophie” Wang Receives 2024 ONR Young Investigator Award

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Xueju "Sophie" Wang
Dr. Xueju “Sophie” Wamg

Xueju “Sophie” Wang has been awarded an Office of Naval Research (ONR) 2024 Young Investigator Award in the category Ocean Battlespace Sensing.  The Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department of ONR explores science and technology in the areas of oceanographic and meteorological observations, modeling, and prediction in the battlespace environment; submarine detection and classification (anti-submarine warfare); and mine warfare applications for detecting and neutralizing mines in both the ocean and littoral environment.

One of 24 recipients in various categories, Dr. Wang’s research, entitled A Soft Intelligent Robot for Self-digging, Multi-modal Sensing, and In Situ Marine Sediment Analysis, was recognized by the Littoral Geosciences and subcategory.  The Littoral Geosciences and Optics program supports basic and applied research for expeditionary warfare, naval special warfare, mine warfare and antisubmarine warfare in shelf, near-shore, estuarine, riverine, and riparian environments, with a particular emphasis on robust 4D prediction of environmental characteristics in denied, distant or remote environments.

Dr. Wang earned a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016.  She joined the faculty of the Materials Science and Engineering Department (MSE) in 2020 with an appointment in the Institute of Materials Science (IMS).  Since then, she has earned extensive recognition for her research including the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award in 2022; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Trailblazer Award, also in 2022; and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Orr Early Career Award in 2021 among others.

Wang’s research focuses on soft, stimuli-responsive materials and multifunctional structures; multistability of reconfigurable, magnetically responsive structures, flexible/pressure-tolerant/bio-integrated electronics, soft robotics and intelligent systems; and in-situ/environmental operando experimental techniques.  Her research has been published extensively.