Some Surprises and Research Opportunities Concerning Soft Matter
Steve Granick, Ph.D.
Founder Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Professor of Physics and Biophysics
Professor of Chemistry
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
Abstract: Nanoscience can guide the design of tailor-made materials with desired functionality. With examples from the fields of biology, colloids, phospholipid vesicles, and polymers, a picture emerges in which simple experiments on the single-molecule and single-particle level can modify one’s understanding of materials design, physics, and biology.
Biosketch: Steve Granick has been on the faculty of the University of Illinois since 1985, where he is currently Founder Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He graduated from Princeton in 1978 with a B.A. cum laude and in 1982 earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, working with John Ferry. As a postdoc, he worked first with Pierre-Gilles de Gennes at the College de France and then with Matthew Tirrell at the University of Minnesota. Honors include the Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society, the Paris-Sciences Medal, Chair of the APS Polymer Physics Division, member of the editorial board of numerous journals, and Guest Professor at Peking University, at Zhejiang University, and at University of Science and Technology of China. He has near 250 refereed publications and has long-standing research interests in dynamics of polymers, complex fluids, colloids, and phospholipid membranes.