11 November 2022: Our paper led by former group members Dr. Terhuiko Saito and Prof. Megan Hill is accepted for publication in JACS. This work introduces a novel catalytic method for the conversion of common polyolefins to conjugated block copolymers for electronics applications. Congrats to Megan and Teru and all of our collaborators!
10 November 2022: Our paper led by former group member Prof. Mingjiang Zhong and his group at Yale University on the assembly of complex multi-block bottlebrush copolymers is published online in Nature Materials. This work takes the first step toward realizing one of our longstanding dreams of designing tri- and tetra-block bottlebrush copolymers as building blocks for the assembly of complex, hierarchical bulk morphologies. Amazing work by Prof. Zhong and his group! Click on the image below to read the paper.
20 September 2022:Wencong's paper on the synthesis and biological performance of polymer–insulin conjugates based on discete, chiral polymers is published online in JACS. This work presents proof-of-concept for a new approach to polymer–polypeptide/protein conjugation that avoids the heterogeneity of traditional polymers and offers opportunities for the generation of diversely functionalized conjugates. Congrats to Wencong and the whole team for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
1 August 2022: We are thrilled to welcome our newest postdoc Dr. Su Nguyen to the group! We look forward to working with you Su!
12 July 2022:Alayna's paper on orthogonally deconstructable and depolymerizable polysilylethers via entropy-driven ROMP is published online in Chemical Communications! Outstanding work Alayna, Keith, and Landon. Click on the image below to read the open-access paper.
12 July 2022: Our manuscript initiated by Nate and ultimately led by Chris and David on "polyCAT" gels is published online in JACS. This work combines features of metal–organic frameworks (e.g., well-defined pore structures) with amorphous polymers (e.g., robust mechanical properties) to enable predictable design of freestanding heterogeneous catalysts that improve catalyst recyclability and enable catalysis under conditions where the homogeneous catalysts are not effective on their own. Congrats to the whole team for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.
28 June 2022: Our manuscript led by Gavin on the deconstruction of common vinyl polymers (e.g., polystyrene, polyacrylate, and styrenic thermosets) using thionolactone comonomers, and subsequent repolymerization of the deconstructed fragments to generate recycled materials with similar molar masses and thermomechanical properties compared to the parent material, is published online in JACS. This work offers a promising strategy to break down and chemically recycle vinyl polymers using common polymerization methods (e.g., free radical polymerization), as well as a simple deconstruction and repolymerization workflow that uses readily available, selective reagents. Moreoever, it introduces new synthetic routes to thionolactones, allowing for tuning of their physical properties for copolymerizations. Congrats to the whole team for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.
24 June 2022:Zehao's paper on "intrinsic molecular confinenment" self-assembly is posted online in ChemRxiv! In this work, Zehao shows how triblock bottlebrush polymers can be designed to access never-before-observed 3D mesh bulk morphologies. Congrats to the entire team for this outstanding work!
14 June 2022:Tian's paper outlining a new strategy for accelerating polymer electrolyte property screening using machine learning is published online in Nature Communications! Thanks to Tian and the Grossman, Shao-Horn, and Gómez-Bombarelli groups for this exciting collaboration. Click on the image below to view the paper.
6 June 2022: We are thrilled to welcome Sawyer Cawthern as an incoming PhD student to MIT and to the Johnson Group! We look forward to working with you!
1 June 2022: We're proud of our collaborator and visiting student Ekua Beneman for her presentation at Spelman's Research Day event. Great work Ekua!
1 June 2022: We're proud of our collaborator and visiting student Taylor Talley for her presentation at Spelman's Research Day event. Great work Taylor!
27 May 2022: Congratulations to our UROP Mary Dai on her graduation from MIT! Mary will pursue a PhD in Chemistry at Harvard University this fall. We'll miss you Mary, but we're excited to see the great work you'll do at Harvard and beyond!
26 May 2022: Today we celebrate commencement and the amazing contributions of three Johnson Group PhD recipients: Dr. Matthew Pearson, Dr. Peter Qin, and Dr. Wencong Wang! It has been our great honor to work with each of you, and we cannot wait to see how you impact the world in positive ways in your future careers!
18 May 2022: Congrats to Dr. Matthew Pearson for receiving a Chemistry Department 2022 Mentorship Spotlight Award in recognition of his mentorship contributions in the Johnson Group and beyond!
29 April 2022: Congrats to newly minted Dr. Matthew Pearson who successfully defended his thesis today!
25 April 2022: Congrats to newly minted Dr. Wencong Wang who successfully defended her thesis today!
22 March 2022: Another first for the group: Our first collaborative paper with our great friends in the Swager group has appeared online in Chemistry of Materials. Congrats to Weize Yuan and all involved!
1 March 2022: We are thrilled to welcome our newest postdoc Dr. Ho Fung (Edmund) Cheng to the group! Edmund joins us following PhD studies with Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern. We look forward to working with you Edmund!
18 January 2022: Congratulations to newly minted PhD Dr. Peter Qin who defended his thesis today! Peter is the 10th PhD from the Johnson Group... my how the time has flown. Next he's heading to Oregon where he's joining 3D Systems. Congrats again Peter. We'll miss you!
1 January 2022: Happy 2022! We are thrilled to announce that PhD student Wencong Wang was selected to present in the 2022 Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium at the upcoming ACS National Meeting in San Diego. Congrats Wencong!
20 December 2021: We are thrilled to announce that our own Dr. Megan Hill has received the MIT Infinite Expansion Award! This major Institute-wide honor recognizes Megan's exceptional science as well as her mentorship and leadership contributions. Congrats Megan!!!
10 December 2021:Matthew's paper on the synthesis of polymer metal–organic frameworks (polyMOFs) using reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and free radical polymerization (FRP) is publishd online in Chemistry of Materials. This work represents the first use of radical polymerization to form polymeric ligands for polyMOFs, opening the door to a wide range of new polyMOF compositions. Additionally, Matthew found that polymer ligand dispersity plays a key role in polyMOF crystallinity, with higher dispersity FRP-based polymers more readily forming crystalline polyMOFs than lower dispersity RAFT-based polymers. This result provides a new design principle for polyMOF synthesis, allowing rational tuning of ligand composition to balance material properties in the future. Click on the image below to read the paper!
6 December 2021: We are thrilled to welcome our newest graduate student Juan A. Cintrón Cruz to the group! Juan is a Course 3 (DMSE) student who joins us as part of the MIT PPSM program. We welcome you Juan and look forward to working with you!
25 November 2021: Happy Thanksgiving! Our paper initiated by former postdoc Jonathan and ultimately led by former group members Hung and Yivan describing the synthesis and biological investigation of bottlebrush polymers with discrete, chiral side chains appears online today in Nature Chemistry! In this work, we developed a new iterative exponential growth (IEG) strategy for the synthesis of discrete macromonomers with precise absolute configurations and tunable conformational rigidities. Two pairs of enantiomeric macromonomers were prepared and subjected to ROMP to produce bottlebrush polymers with mirror-image sidechains. Remarkably, we found that bottlebrush polymers with conformationally flexible side chains displayed handedness-dependent biological properties in vitro and in vivo, whereas comparably rigid bottlebrushes did not. These finding were rationalized using a simple model of chiral objects interacting with a chiral wall, showing that when the lock-and-key model does not apply, conformational flexibility can enhance chiral recognition. Thanks to all of our former group members (Hung, Yivan, Jonathan, Nate, Kathleen, Qixian, Matt, and Katherine!), current student Wencong, and our collaborators Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli, Adam Willard, Mike Hore, and their group members for their excellent contributions to this work! It has been years in the making! Click on the image below to read the paper.
21 October 2021: The magic electrolyte strikes again! Our paper with the Li and Shao-Horn groups realizing high-voltage Li||LiCoO2 batteries using our LiFSI/DMTMSA electrolyte is published online in Energy and Environmental Science. Congrats to current and former group members Megan and Wenxu, respectively, as well as Weijiang from the Li lab for leading this work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
7 October 2021: We are thrilled to announce that current postdoc Megan (below left) and former PhD student Yuwei (below right) were selected to participate in the PMSE Future Faculty Symposium at the upcoming ACS National Meeting! Congrats to both of you!
7 October 2021: Our MONET team paper led by Steve Craig and Zi Wang of Duke University on using mechanochemical extension of polymer network strands to increase hydrogel toughness is published online in Science. What an exciting way to begin Phase II of MONET! Click on the image below to read the paper.
28 September 2021: We are thrilled to welcome our newest postdoc Dr. Elisabeth Prince to the group! Ellie joins us as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow following PhD studies at the University of Toronto. Welcome Ellie!
16 September 2021: PhD student Sachin has received a National Cancer Institute Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition (F99/K00) Award! He is the first student from MIT to ever win this incredibly prestigious honor. Congrats Sachin! Click on the image below to read the MIT News press release about Sachin and his work.
17 August 2021: Need to do tensile testing of your polymers but you don't have access to appropriate instrumenation and you don't want to spend too much $? Check out our new paper in Materials Advances. This work, which was led by former visiting student Martin Henriksen, describes a custom-built tensile tester made from readily available parts for about $500. Congrats to Martin for this great and very useful work! Click HERE to read the open access paper.
10 August 2021:Manu and Yivan's paper on the efficient synthesis of discrete glycomacromolecules—"glyco-IEGmers"—published online in JACS Au. Here, Manu and Yivan used iterative exponential growth (IEG) to prepare mannosylated oligotriazoles of varying lengths, absolute configurations, and topologies. Working in collaboration with Prof. Remzi Becer, we studied the binding of these molecules toward 8 different human lectins, showing that their molecular features can give rise to several orders-of-magnitude variations in binding affinity and selectivity. Then, with Prof. Laura Kiessling, we showed that their cellular trafficking can be tuned by altering their sidechain composition. All of these results were supported by molecular dynamics simulations from Prof. Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli, which revealed that the stereochemistry of the glyco-IEGmer backbone impacts its conformational diversity, which in term affects lectin binding. Congrats to everyone involved in this great work! Click on the image below to read the open access paper.
1 July 2021: The Johnson Group celebrates its 10-year anniversary! Thanks to all of our outstanding group members and collaborators who have made so many outstanding contributions over the years. Here's to the next 10!
28 June 2021: Our News & Views article with collaborators Yang Shao-Horn and Nicolò Minafra is now available online in Nature Energy. Thanks Yang and Nicolò for including us in this fun project! Click on the image below to read the article and check out the corresponding paper from Xiao, Liu, and coworkers.
14 June 2021: We welcome new UROP Lori Won to the group!
9 June 2021: We welcome MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP) visiting students Ekua Beneman and Taylor Talley from Prof. Michelle Gaines' group at Spelman College!
8 June 2021: Our team's effort on the design of "strand-cleaving crosslinker" additives for manufacturing chemically deconstructable versions of existing thermosets without compromising thermomechanical properties published online in ACS Macro Letters. Great work Keith, Peyton, David, and Sam! Click on the image below to check out the paper.
29 May 2021: Sachin's review on the development and delivery of TLR agonists is now available as an open access paper in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. Awesome work Sachin! Click on the image below to check out the paper.
4 May 2021: Michael receives a PMSE Best Poster Award for his presentation entitled "Highly Ordered Ion Conducting Polymer Electrolytes for Decoupled Ion Transport" at the Spring 2021 Virtual ACS Meeting! Congrats Michael!
7 April 2021: Our paper on the development of BET inhibitor bottlebrush polymer prodrugs is featured in JACS Spotlights! Check it out HERE.
6 April 2021: Our review on efficient covalent bond cleavage reactions, which we refer to as "clip" reactions for their complementary nature to bond-forming "click" reactions, appears online in Chemical Reviews as part of a special thematic issue on Click Chemistry. This manuscript has been a dream for many years and it's exciting to see it come to fruition! This also happens to be the group's 100th paper! Congrats to Peyton, Megan, Wenxu, and Samantha on this awesome work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
1 April 2021: The MONET team's review on characterization of polymer networks appears online in Chemical Reviews. Congrats to all involved! Click on the image below to read the paper.
25 March 2021: Our paper with the Li and Shao-Horn groups on the design of a new liquid electrolyte that enables cycling of ultra-high-voltage (4.7 V) Ni-rich lithium–metal batteries appears online in Nature Energy. Congrats to former group members Mingjun, Wenxu, and Sipei for their contributions to this great work. Click on the image below to read the paper, and check out the accompanying MIT News story HERE.
19 March 2021: Our paper on the development of BET inhibitor bottlebrush polymer prodrugs that display improved safety and efficacy in mouse models of triple-negative breast cancer appears online in JACS. This work demonstrates that the unique bivalent bottlebrush polymer architecture, combined with modular linker chemistry, can enable predictive in vitro to in vivo optimization of clinical or lead compounds that suffer from poor drug-like properties or therapeutic indexes. Congrats to Farrukh and the rest of our awesome team on this work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
8 March 2021: On this International Women's Day we thank the Johnson Group Women for their many outstanding contributions to our group, the MIT Chemistry Department, and the world in general. You are awesome!
8 March 2021: Congrats to Sachin for being awarded a Slavin Family Foundation Fellowship!
15 February 2021: We welcome new first year graduate students Alayna Johnson and Aiden Wang to the group! Read their bios on the group page!
1 February 2021: Join us on February 16th for the next seminar in the JGSS. We are happy to welcome Dr. Darrel Boyd from the US Naval Research Laboratory. Click on the image below (or on the Seminar Series link at the top of this page) to register.
29 January 2021: The premier performance of Art of Polymers was a great success, with 300+ attendees remarkably few technical difficulties. Thanks to our collaborators from Multiverse for your creativity and beautiful music! Watch the full show at the link below.
18 January 2021:Jessica and Chris' review of the fascinating chemistry of N-hetereocyclic carbene-carbodiimide (NHC-CDI) adducts is published online in Chemical Science! Congrats to Jessica and Chris! Click on the image below to view the paper.
12 January 2021:Grace and Eileen's paper describing epoxidation of polybutadiene using dimethyldioxirane (DMDO) generated in continuous flow is accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry! Congrats to Grace (Jamison Group) and Eileen! Click on the image below to read the paper.
4 January 2021: Welcome 2021! Wenxu's paper describing a new family of fluorinated aryl sulfonamide tagged (FAST) polyanions for single-ion conducting polymer electrolytes is published online in Chemistry of Materials! Congrats to Wenxu and our collaborators from the Shao-Horn and Watanabe groups! Click on the image below to read the paper.
21 December 2020: Two more pieces of great news! First, Dr. Samantha Kristufek has been awarded an Infinite Expansion Award from the MIT School of Science for her outstanding contributions to our research and our group and departmental climate as a whole. Second, Dr. Peyton Shieh has received a Chemistry Department 2020 Mentorship Spotlight Award in recognition of his mentorship contributions to the Johnson Group. Congrats to Sam and Peyton for these very prestigious honors!
9 December 2020: Two pieces of great news today. First, Dr. Peyton Shieh has been awarded a Kavanaugh Translational Innovation Fellowship to translate his degradable/recyclable thermoset technology from the lab to commercialization. Second, Dr. Bin Liu has received a Koch Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, supported by the Ludwig Center at MIT, for his proposal to develop bottlebrush polymer-based cancer immunotherapies. Congrats to Peyton and Bin for these very prestigious honors!
1 September 2020: We welcome new postdoc Dr. Bin Liu! Bin conducted PhD research with Prof. S. Thai Thayumanavan at UMass Amherst. At MIT, he will advance many avenues of our bottlebrush-prodrug technology. Welcome Bin!
30 August 2020: Sachin receives a Koch Institute Graduate Fellowship from the Ludwig Center at MIT's Koch Institute! Congrats Sachin!
25 August 2020: Thanks to Professor Davita Watkins for being our first JGSS speaker and for presenting her exciting work on dendron-polymer hybrids for drug delivery!
27 July 2020: The Johnson Group Seminar Series (JGSS) officially launches! This series of monthly talks will include leading researchers in organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, materials science, and other adjacent fields. Check out the schedule of the first 5 talks and register to attend by clicking on the "Seminar Series" heading above. The JGSS is open to all; we look forward to seeing you online to learn some exciting chemistry!
23 July 2020: Degradable pDCPD paper highlighted in C&E News! Check out the story HERE (thanks to Ariana Remmel for writing this nice article).
22 July 2020:Peyton's paper on using silyl ether monomers to make degradable, recyclable polydicyclopentadiene through ROMP published in Nature. This work introduces a new class of recyclable thermosets that could potentially be used immediately. It also unveils a general design principle that may enable the fabrication of a wider range of recyclable thermosets. Congrats to Peyton, Wenxu, Keith, Samantha, and David as well as our wonderful collaborators from the Nelson and Plata groups. Click on the image below to read the paper and check out the MIT News highlight HERE (thanks to Anne Trafton for putting together this nice article).
22 June 2020:Hung's paper on "pro-ORCAs," which represent a new organic nanoparticle platform for MRI-based tracking of prodrug activation in cell culture and/or in vivo, accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry. Congrats to Hung and thanks to our collaborators from the Rajca, Jasanoff, Ghobrial, and Ghoroghchian groups! Click on the image below to read the "just accepted" version of the paper.
19 June 2020: Dr. Gavin Kiel is awarded a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Chemical Sciences. Click on the image below to learn more. Congrats Gavin!
18 June 2020:Bo's paper on building a linear free energy relationship-based model to predict the impacts of different molecular substituents on the bulk properties of oligoethylene glycol-LiTFSI electrolytes published online in ACS Central Science. Congrats to Bo and our wonderful collaborators from the Shao-Horn, Gómez-Bombarelli, and Grossman groups! We also thank the Toyota Research Institute for their generous ongoing support for this work. Click on the image below to read the paper.
1 June 2020:Farrukh and Lauren's paper on the development of thermally responsive "ABC" triblock bottlebrush copolymers as injectable hydrogels for cancer immunochemotherapy published online in Chemical Science. This work provides a new modular and tunable self-assembled material platform for local therapeutic applications. Congrats to Farrukh, Qixian, Wenxu, Sachin, and Hung as well as our collaborators Lauren Milling and Prof. Darrell Irvine. Click on the image below to read the open access paper:
9 May 2020: Sachin receives a 2020 Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts! Congrats Sachin!
1 May 2020: Julia defends her thesis and is now officially Dr. Zhao! Congrats Julia!
22 April 2020: Dr. Gavin Kiel is awarded a Koch Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Gavin!
22 April 2020: Collaborative paper with the Grossman and Shao-Horn groups on using machine learning and molecular dynamics to guide the design of polymer electrolytes published online in Chemistry of Materials. Congrats to Yangming and Tian from the Grossman group for this great work. Click on the image below to read the just accepted paper.
20 April 2020: We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Bo Qiao has accepted a junior faculty position in the School of Physical Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech University! Congrats Bo!
6 April 2020: PhD student Abe Herzog-Arbeitman named a Hertz Fellowship Finalist! Congrats Abe!
31 March 2020: PhD students David Lundberg and Hadiqa Zafar awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Congrats David and Hadiqa!!
31 March 2020: Former Johnson Group PhD student Dr. Hung Nguyen receives an IUPAC-SOLVAY Internatioal Award for Young Chemists for producing one of the best PhD theses in the chemical sciences. Congrats Hung! Click on the picture below to read the award announcement.
17 March 2020: Yuwei and Julia's review article entitled, "Polymer networks: from plastics and gels to porous frameworks," published in Angewandte Chemie. Congrats on this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
9 March 2020: The Johnson Group and Window Therapeutics LLC awarded an Assay Cascade Award from the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL)! Through this award, bottlebrush polymer prodrugs will undergo a rigorous evaluation that may include sterility and endotoxin testing, physicochemical characterization, in vitro hemato- and immunotoxicity, and in vivo studies to evaluate safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetics. The studies are designed to promote the clinical translation of these novel therapies. Click on the image below to read more about the award. Congrats to the Johnson Group drug delivery team and Window Therapeutics LLC!
3 March 2020: Jeremiah promoted to Full Professor! Congrats also to Mircea Dinca and Gabriela Schlau-Cohen on their promotions to Full Professor and Associate Professor without tenure, respectively. Click on the image below to read more about these promotions.
2 March 2020: Nolan's paper on the discovery of a persistent distonic radical cation based on an N-heterocyclic carbene-carboodimiide (NHC-CDI) adduct published in Angewandte Chemie. Congrats Nolan! Click on the image below to read the paper.
1 March 2020: Peyton and Samantha selected for the PMSE Future Faculty Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco! Congrats!
27 February 2020: Dr. Gavin Kiel is awarded a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Gavin!
19 February 2020: We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Jessica Lamb has accepted a junior faculty position in the Department of Chemistry at Univeristy of Minnesota! Congrats Jessica!
13 February 2020: The annual Johnson Group Ski Trip to Killington, VT happened from Feb 11–13. Thanks to Samantha, Michael, and Eric for organizing the trip, Samantha and Michael for cooking great dinners, and Nate for designing the logo for the group sweatshirt. A great time was had by all. Looking forward to next year!
11 February 2020: The Johnson group celebrates International Day of Women and Girls in Science! Thank you Johnson Group Women for your amazing contributions to science and for making the Johnson group a wonderful place to be!
10 February 2020: Nate and Peter's paper describing Cu-based polyMOC gels featuring photoswitchable junctions published in Angewandte Chemie! This work comprises a wonderful collaboration with the Willard, Van Voorhis, and Craig (Duke) groups and is supported by the NSF Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks (MONET). Click on the inside cover image below to read the paper.
3 February 2020: We welcome new postdoc Dr. Sipei Li! Sipei conducted PhD research with Kris Matyjaszewski at Carnegie Mellon University. At MIT, he will work jointly with the Shao-Horn group on the discovery of new electrolyte materials using high-throughput methods. Welcome Sipei!
24 January 2020: We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Nate Oldenhuis has accepted a junior faculty position in the Department of Chemistry at Univeristy of New Hampshire! Congrats Nate!
23 January 2020: We welcome visiting student Yi Cui from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)!
4 December 2019: Our collaborative work with Prof. Jeff Grossman and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn using molecular dynamics simulations to understand how structural modifications to PEO impact lithium transport in concentrated polymer electrolytes published online in Chemistry of Materials! Click HERE to read the paper. Congrats to Arthur from the Grossman group and the whole team!
21 November 2019: The Johnson group is thrilled to welcome 8 new PhD students! Looking forward to working with you Abe, Hadiqa, Khrystofor, Landon, Leticia, Valerie, Yasmeen, and Zehao!
21 November 2019: Our collaborative work with Prof. Ju Li and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn on a new class of electrolytes for lithium metal batteries published online in Energy and Environmental Science! Click on the image below to read the paper, and stay tuned for more exciting results from this team!
28 October 2019: Jeremiah and our great collaborator Prof. Yang Shao-Horn were interviewed by C&E News as part of a story on Li-air battery technology. Check out the story HERE or click on the image below.
28 October 2019: Peyton and Hung's paper on bifunctional silyl ether monomers that enable the synthesis of polynorbornene-based copolymers with tunable degradability through ROMP published online in Nature Chemistry! Congrats Peyton and Hung! Click on the image below to read the paper and check out the MIT News highlight HERE.
22 October 2019: The Johnson group joins the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as an Associate Member. We are honored to be included within the incredible scientific community of the Broad. Looking forward to many exciting new opportunities!
12 September 2019: Exciting collaborative work led by Prof. Brad Olsen on the development of BigSMILES appears online in ACS Central Science! Click on the image below to read the paper.
10 September 2019: Yuwei, Mingjun, Wenxu, and Matthew's exciting work on the use of a polymeric ligand to facilitate the synthesis of MOF nanoparticles published online in Angewandte Chemie. Click on the image below to read the paper.
9 August 2019: Mingjun, Wenxu, and Bo's collaborative work with the Shao-Horn group appears online in Chemistry of Materials. Click on the image below to read the paper.
25 July 2019: Collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group on the design of novel electrolytes for Li-O2 batteries accepted for publication in Chem. Congrats to the whole team! Click on the image below to read the paper.
17 July 2019: Yuwei is named as a finalist for the Reaxys PhD Prize 2019! Congrats Dr. Gu!!
27 June 2019: The Jonhson group mints 4 new PhDs! Congrats to Dr. Deborah Ehrlich (not shown in the picture below), Dr. Yuwei Gu (left), Dr. Yivan Jiang (middle), and Dr. Hung Nguyen (right)!
31 May 2019: PhD student Julia Zhao presented at the Excellence in Polymer Graduate Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in Orlando. Congrats to Julia for the well-deserved recognition!
29 May 2019: Jeremiah is honored to be named a Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist! Thank you to the New York Academy of Sciences and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Click on the image below for more details.
13 May 2019: The group (finally) joined Twitter! Follow us@johnsonchem!
3 May 2019: Hung successfully defends his thesis! Congrats to Dr. Nguyen!!
2 May 2019: Yivan successfully defends his thesis! Congrats to Dr. Jiang!!
29 April 2019: Junpeng's paper on quantifying primary loops in sidechain crosslinked polymer networks and single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) published online in Chemical Science. Congrats on this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
19 April 2019: Yuwei successfully defends his thesis! Congrats to Dr. Gu!!
12 April 2019: Deb successfully defends her thesis! Congrats to Dr. Ehrlich!!
4 April 2019: Gaby and Hung's paper on ROMP of polyoxazoline macromonomers published online in ACS Macro Letters. Congrats on this nice work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
21 March 2019: Former graduate student Alex Zhukhovitskiy is featured in the ACS Polymer Division (POLY) Member Spotlight. Click on the image below to read the highlight.
11 March 2019: Congratulations to Matthew Golder for accepting a tenure-track position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington! Click on the image below to read the announcement on the UW website.
9 March 2019: Samantha selected to receive a 2019 Misrock Postdoctoral Fellowship award for her proposed work on using brush-arm star polymers for CRISPR/Cas-9-mediated cancer therapy. Congrats to Samantha for this very prestigious honor!
5 March 2019: The somewhat annual Johnson Group Ski Trip to Killington, VT happened from Feb 19-21. Thanks to Samantha, Nate, and Shannon for organizing the trip, Samantha and Manuel for cooking great dinners, and Julia for designing the logo for the group sweatshirt (see below). A great time was had by all. Looking forward to next year!
4 March 2019: Congratulations to former graduate student Alex Zhukhovitskiy for accepting a tenure-track position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill! Click on the image below to read the announcement on the UNC website.
25 February 2019: Julia and Yuwei's review on the topology of polymer networks accepted for publication in Trends in Chemistry. This short review provides an excellent introduction to how topology dictates the properties of polymeric materials, and highlights recent developments in the area of using chemistry to characterize and control polymer network topology. Congrats to Julia and Yuwei for this great work! More details to come...
18 February 2019: Former postdoc Junpeng Wang begins his independent career at the University of Akron!
13 February 2019: Yuwei wins the Extraordinary Prize of the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad. He is one of only 10 such awardees worldwide. Congrats to Yuwei for this very prestigious honor!
8 February 2019: Jessica's paper on trithiocarbonate-mediated photo-controlled radical polymerization of acrylates and acrylamides under ambient conditions (e.g., open vials) and with no additives published online in Polymer Chemistry. This work represents a significant advance toward our ultimate goal of enabling practical Living Additive Manufacturing (see ACS Cent. Sci. 2017, 3, 124). Congrats to Jessica for this excellent work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
8 February 2019: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group on a new and improved version of Real Elastic Network Theory published online in Macromolecules. Congrats to Tzyy-Shyang! Click on the image below to read the paper.
17 December 2018: Michelle's paper on bidentate NHC-thiolate ligands for gold nanorods is highlighted in Nature Chemistry News & Views!
15 December 2018: Welcome to our four new graduate students Allie Sourakov, David Lundberg, Keith Husted, and Michael Stolberg!
Check out the group page for more information about them.
11 December 2018: Matt's paper on "ROMP-out" highlighted on the cover of the latest issue of Macromolecules.
14 November 2018: Matt's paper on "ROMP-out" published online in Macromolecules. Click on the image below to read the paper. Congrats Matt!
12 November 2018: Michelle's paper on the synthesis of exceptionally robust bidentate NHC-thiolate-stabilized gold nanorods published online in Nature Chemistry. Congrats Michelle!
5 November 2018: Former visting student Dr. Manuel Hartweg re-joins the group as a postdoc. Welcome back, Manuel!
18 October 2018: Hung's paper on triply-loaded nitroxide BASPs for metal-free magnetic resonance imaging of tumors published online in ACS Nano. Congrats to Hung and thanks to all of our collaborators for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
13 October 2018: The group and friends visited Connor's Farm for festive fall activities including apple picking, corn mazing, and cider donut eating!
10 October 2018: Yuwei's paper on harnessing the leaving groups in KAT ligation amide bond forming reactions to program the topology of polymer netwoks in a chemically traceless manner is published online in JACS. Congrats to Yuwei and thanks to the Bode group at ETH for this fruitful collaboration! Click on the image below to read the paper.
9 October 2018: Yoshiki and Ryoichi's paper on the impact of PEO architcture on lithium ion conductivity published online in Journal of Polymer Science, Part A. Congrats to Yoshiki and Ryoichi for this excellent work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
17 September 2018: Jeremiah receives an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award!
15 September 2018: We are thrilled to be part of a new NSF Center for Chemical Innovation. Our center, called the "Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks," or "MONET" for short, consists of researchers from the Craig and Rubinstein groups at Duke University, the Kalow group at Northwestern University, and the Johnson and Olsen groups here at MIT. Together, we seek to elucidate molecular design principles that will enable finely tuned control over the properties of polymer networks for emerging applications.
11 September 2018: Dr. Samantha Kristufek joins the group as a new postdoc!
5 September 2018: Bo's paper on the role of selective anion binding in controlling litihium ion conductivity and transference number highlighted as a supplementary cover in JACS. Click on the image below to read the paper.
23 August 2018: Wenxu's paper on LiAlH4 reduction of polymethyl(meth)acrylate-based block copolymers to generate novel hydroxy-based block copolymers with exceptionally high chi values published online in Macromolecules. Congrats Wenxu for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
23 August 2018: Shuting's perspective article on an exciting development in lithium-oxygen battery chemistry from Nazar and coworkers published online in Science. Great work Shuting! Click on the image below to read the paper.
20 August 2018: Matt and Jenny's paper on brush-arm star polymer (BASP)-based telmisartan prodrugs for liver fibrosis therapy appears online in Nature Biomedical Engineering! Congrats to Matt, Jenny, and everyone on the team for this great work!
13 August 2018: Editorial article on polymers at the interface with biology published online in Biomacromolecules. Special thanks to Tim Deming and Harm-Anton Klok for including our work.
8 August 2018: Members of the group spent the morning volunteering at Cradles to Crayons in Brighton, MA. We distributed backpacks filled with school supplies to local teachers and organizations that serve kids in need. We all had a great time, though Matt almost fell out of a semi truck. Check out a photo of the group during a short break in the action:
25 July 2018: Dr. Jessica Lamb receives an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Jessica!
18 July 2018: Yuwei's paper on photoswitching the topology of polymer metal-organic cage (polyMOC) gels published online in Nature! Congrats to Yuwei for this awesome work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
17 July 2018: Bo's paper on using anion recognition to control the conductivity of lithium in solution is published in JACS. In this paper, Bo convincingly shows how the compound cyanostar, which is a macrocycle that selectively binds PF6 anions in a 2:1 ratio, can be used to increase the conductivity and transference number of lithium in a low dielectric medium (THF). This work was made possible by a great collaboration with the Shao-Horn and Flood labs at MIT and University of Indiana, respectively. Congrats to Bo and the whole team! Click on the image below to read the paper.
10 July 2018: Welcome back visiting undergraduate student Leticia Costa who joins us again this summer!
1 July 2018: Visiting undergraduate Oscar Gonzalez joins for the summer from Texas A+M University. Visiting PhD student Martin Lahn Henriksen joins from Aarhus University in Denmark.
7 June 2018: Collaborative paper with the Ross and Alexander-Katz groups on the self-assembly of polystyrene-branch-polydimethylsiloxane Janus bottlebrush copolymers appears online in Nano Letters. Congrats to the team for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
1 June 2018: Junpeng Wang will start his independent career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Akron in the Department of Polymer Science in January 2019.
18 May 2018: Collaborative paper with the Zhong and Osuji groups on the self-assembly of branched macromonomers and Janus bottlebrush polymers with oligomeric sidechains appears online in Angewandte Chemie. In this work, we show that Janus bottlebrush polymers with very short sidechains can self-assemble to form classical block copolymer morphologies with very small (sub-10 nm) domain sizes. Most importantly, the mechanical properties of the resulting materials are determined by the bottlebrush backbone length rather than the block copolymer sidechain length, which means that our materials can be mechanically robust despite their very small domain sizes. Congrats to Zi-Hao and the whole team for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
15 May 2018: Jeremiah becomes an Associate Editor of the journal Polymer Chemistry!
5 May 2018: The group convened at Fugakyu to enjoy sushi boats and to say goodbye to Dr. Yoshiki Shibuya and welcome Dr. Masamichi Shirakura and Dr. Teruhiko Saito. Best of luck in your future career at L'Oréal Yoshiki. We'll miss you!
1 May 2018: Welcome to visiting scientists Dr. Masamichi Shirakura from Otsuaka Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Teruhiko Saito from Panasonic!
30 April 2018: We are thrilled to be part of a Stand Up to Cancer "Dream Team" focused on the development of early diagnostic and therapeutic tools for multiple myeloma (MM) patients. In this project, we will work with clinicians to design targeted MRI contrast agents for identification of early-stage MM. We will combine these diagnostic tools with macromolecular prodrug therapies to enable early disease intervention. Looking forward to working with the Ghobrial (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and Borello (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) labs on this exciting and impactful project!
20 April 2018: Collaborative paper with the Osuji group on the self-assembly of branched macromonomers and bottlebrush polymers that contain polymer and mesogen sidechains published in Macromolecules. Congrats to Katerina and Ken for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
11 April 2018: PhD student Julia Zhao orgnizes MIT's 2018 Polymer Day! As the name suggests, Polymer Day is a day where we celebrate all things polymer-related at MIT and in the greater region. Students, post-docs, faculty, and industry representatives come from all over to learn about and discuss cutting edge research in polymer science and engineering. Thanks to Julia for making this event a great success!
11 April 2018: Former PhD student Michelle MacLeod named a 2018 Change Maker by MIT's Violence Prevention and Response, Title IX, and Bias Response Offices! Michelle's efforts to raise awareness of sexual harassment and create an inclusive environment for all will have a longlasting impact on our Department and MIT as a whole. Congrats Michelle for this greatly deserved award!
10 April 2018: PhD student Yuwei Gu featured in several exciting venues! First, he presented at the Excellence in Polymer Graduate Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans (top image below), where he also won a Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY) Outstanding Poster Award. The latter led to him being featured in the latest POLY Division spotlight (bottom image below). Congrats to Yuwei for the well-deserved recognition!
26 March 2018: Nolan's paper describing a new class of main-chain-zwitterionic supramolecular polymers, called poly(azolium amidinate)s or "PAzAms," published online in Macromolecules. These fascinating new polymers are derived from the formation of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-carbodiimide (CDI) adducts. Nolan shows that it is possible to finely tune the (thermo)dynamics of pZAms to enable their controlled depolymerization and morphing between different PAzAm structures. Congrats Nolan! Click on the image below to read the paper.
26 March 2018: Collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group (MIT Mechanical Engineering) and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) on the design of modular salts for battery applications published online in Energy and Environmental Science. In this work, we sought to expand the structural scope of sulfonimides, which are common components of lithium and other batteries. The famous TFSI anion is frequently used in batteries thanks to its excellent stability, but it cannot be easily chemically modified to alter its properties such as solubility and size. In this paper, we develop a new family of sulfonimides called Fluorinated Aryl Sulfonimide Tagged ("FAST") anions that can be rapidly and easily modified to generate metal salts with tunable properties. FAST salts greatly expand the number of available Li or other metal salts available for use in battery research. Congrats to the whole team, especially Mingjun and Shuting, for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.
26 March 2018: Hung's paper on a scalable synthetic strategy for multivalent macromonomers is published online in ACS Macro Letters. This approach described in this paper enables the synthesis of our macromonomers in 3 total steps (2 steps longest linear sequence) in 92% yield on the 100 g scale with no chromatography. In addition, it allows us to easily incorporate multiple functionalities onto the same macromonomer, which is a gamechanger for our projects on drug delivery and imaging with bottlebrush and brush-arm star polymers. Congrats Hung! Click on the image below to read the paper.
23 March 2018: It was great to hang out with friends and family at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans!
23 March 2018: Dr. Peyton Shieh is awarded an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship! Congrats Peyton!
11 March 2018: Welcome to new UROP Rebecca Sloan and visting graduate student Zhihao Huang!
7 February 2018: Matt and Yivan's paper on the role of stereochemistry in the self-assembly of unimolecular block copolymers is highlighted as a supplementary cover in JACS. Click on the image below to read the paper.
5 February 2018: Junpeng's paper on counting secondary loops in end-linked polymer networks appears online in ACS Macro Letters! In this paper, Junpeng figured out a way to use a non-degradable polymer chain in the context of Network Disassembly Spectrometry (NDS) to provide the first direct measurements of the secondary loop fraction in polymer networks. Prior to this work, it was only possible to measure primary loop defects. As we continue to investigate the impact of topological defects in polymer networks, Junpeng's "NDS2.0" will be an invaluable tool. Congrats to Junpeng and the rest of the group for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
2 February 2018: New Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT members announced. Click on the image below for details.
23 January 2018: Matt and Yivan's paper on the role of stereochemistry in the self-assembly of unimolecular block copolymers appears online in JACS. In this paper, Matt and Yivan prepared a series of stereoisomeric block copolymers using our IEG strategy. Remarkably, they discovered that these block copolymers self-assemble to form different morphologies. This work elucidates the fundamental role of stereochemistry in block copolymer assembly. Congrats to Matt, Yivan, and the rest of the group for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
17 January 2018: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group (MIT Chemical Engineering) on the topological structure of TetraPEG gels appears online in Macromolecules. In this paper, we developed kinetic graph theory and Monte Carlo simulations that allow for the study of cyclic topologies in A_4 + B_4 polymer networks. These studies confirm that secondary loops, wherein two strands link two adjacent junctions, play a particularly fundamental role in the properties of these ubiquitous materials. Congrats to Tzyy-Shyang and Rui for yet another great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
18 December 2017: The group welcomes new visiting student Shuto Mochizuki and visiting professor Prof. Masahiro Fujita.
5 December 2017: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group (MIT Chemical Engineering) on quantifying the gel point in end-linked polymer networks appears online in ACS Macro Letters. In this paper, we use Monte Carlo simulations to show that if loop defects defects are properly accounted for, one can predict the gel point without any other fitting parameters. These results further highlight the fundamental role of loops in determining the properties of polymer networks. Congrats to Rui and Tzyy-Shyang for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.
4 December 2017: Jeremiah receives the 2016-2017 School of Science Prize in Undergraduate Teaching! It is an incredible honor to be included on this list of amazing teachers... thank you MIT!
15 November 2017: Jeremiah joins the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.
14 November 2017: The group welcomes 3 new graduate students! Sachin Bhagchandani, Matthew Pearson, and Wencong Wang!
8 November 2017: The group welcomes new UROP Alexandra Sourakov!
3 November 2017: Collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group (MIT Mechanical Engineering) and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) on understanding electrolyte stability in the Li-air battery cathode published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A. In this paper, we calculate the bond dissociation energies, acidities, driving forces for nucleophilic substitution, and electrochemical stabilities of a wide range of organic molecules under conditions that mimic the Li-air battery cathode. These results allowed us to predict structure-stability relationships and degradation mechanisms that agreed with experimental stability tests. Congrats to the whole team, especially Shuting and Mao, for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.
30 October 2017: Welcome to visting student Gaby Gil Alvaradejo and visting professor Xiaojuan Liao!
14 September 2017: The Tech, MIT's student newspaper, interviews Jeremiah about the new Minor in Polymers and Soft Matter (MPSM).
If you're an MIT undergraduate interested in polymer science and/or engineering, and you'd like to pursue the MPSM, click on the following links for details:
14 September 2017: Congratulations to Dr. Michelle MacLeod for successfully defending her thesis. The group's 4th PhD!!!
5 September 2017: Dr. Bo Qiao joins the group as a new joint postdoc with the Shao-Horn Group!
30 August 2017: MIT unveils the new Minor in Polymers and Soft Matter (MPSM)! If you're an MIT undergraduate interested in polymer science and/or engineering, and you'd like to pursue the MPSM, contact Jeremiah or click here for details.
22 August 2017: Michelle's block-co-polyMOF paper selected as the Paper of the Month by the Polymer Chemistry Blog. Congrat's Michelle!
21 August 2017: Yoshiki's paper on mikto-brush-arm star polymers ("MBASPs") is published online in ACS Macro Letters. In this paper, Yoshiki demonstrates the synthesis of brush-arm star polymers with arms of varied composition through the convergent cross-linking of independently synthesized living bottlebrush polymers. Congrats Yoshiki!
19 August 2017: New postdoc Dr. Jessica Lamb arrives from Cornell!
10 August 2017: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Eileen Burke who joins us from UW-Madison!
12 July 2017: Hung's paper on BASP-ORCAs, the first metal-free paramagentic agents with sufficient stability and relaxivity for MRI imaging in vivo up to 20 h following injection, is published in ACS Central Science. This work shows that organic radical MRI contrast agents can potentially compete with metal-based agents, the latter of which suffer from serious toxicity concerns. Congrats Hung!
12 July 2017: Michelle's paper introducing "Block Co-PolyMOFs" is published in Polymer Chemistry. Block Co-PolyMOFs are novel polymer-polyMOF hybrid materials derived from block copolymers that feature a polyMOF forming oligomer block and an amorphous polymer block. Michelle demonstrates that these block copolymers can bind to zinc ions and yield easily processable and highly stable crystalline polyMOFs embedded within amorphous polymer networks. Congrats Michelle!
26 June 2017: Nate Oldenhuis receives an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Nate!
21 June 2017: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Yoshiki Shibuya!
11 June 2017: Welcome to the rest of our summer visiting students: Julian Grundler, Sarah Al Abdullatif, and Leticia Costa!
8 June 2017: Congratulations to Dr. Ken Kawamoto, the group's third PhD!!!
29 May 2017: Welcome to the first of our summer visitors! Prof. Ellane Park joins us from Rollins College and Manuel Hartweg is a visiting graduate student from Queen Mary University of London.
24 May 2017: Michelle MacLeod was honored at the 2017 celebration of Graduate Women of Excellence. Congrats Michelle!
18 May 2017: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Nate Oldenhuis!
10 May 2017: Congrats to Dr. Ken Kawamoto for successfully defending his thesis! The 3rd group PhD!!
24 April 2017: Yuwei's paper on using semi-batch monomer addition to control loops in polymer networks and thereby enhance or tune their mechanical properties is published online in PNAS. Congrats Yuwei!
19 April 2017: Ken Kawamoto presented his research on branched-bottlebrush polymer assembly in the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco. Congrats Ken!
11 April 2017: Jiwon Park awarded a Fulbright Scholarship! Congrats Jiwon!
10 April 2017: New post-doc Peyton Shieh joins the group! Welcome Peyton!
3 April 2017: We are happy to be part of a multi-PI team sponsored by the Toyota Research Institute that will design novel polymers for energy storage applications. Click here for the MIT News announcement.
7 March 2017: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group on odd-even effects of junction functionality on the primary loop fraction in end-linked polymer networks appears online in Macromolecules. Thanks to Brad and Rui for the great work!
1 March 2016: The group welcomes two new group members: Simi Bright (MIT UROP) and Dr. Junpeng Wang (post-doc)! See group page for more details.
10 February 2017: Jeremiah joins the editorial advisory boards of Macromolecules and ACS Macro Letters.
6 February 2017: Collaborative paper with the Balazs group on photoregeneration of severed gels published online in Soft Matter. Thanks to Anna and her group for the great collaboration!
3 February 2017: Matthew Golder receives an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Matt!
2 February 2017: Mao's paper on a thermally responsive and recyclable gel photoredox catalyst for multiple-stimuli- and logic-gated controlled radical polymerization appears online in Journal of the American Chemical Society. Congrats Mao!
23 January 2017: Jiwon Park is highlighted by MIT News. Click on the image below to read the story. Congrats Jiwon for your amazing accomplishments!
13 January 2017: Mao and Yuwei's paper on Living Additive Manufacturing via Photo-Redox Catalyzed Growth (PRCG) of polymer networks published online in ACS Central Science. Click on the image below to view the open access paper, andread the MIT News story here. Congrats Mao and Yuwei and the whole team!
5 December 2016: Yufeng's paper on Star PolyMOCs published online in Angewandte Chemie. Click on the image below to view the paper. Congrats Yufeng!
15 September 2016: Mingjiang, Rui, and Ken's paper on quantifying how topological defects impact the elasticity of polymer networks published online in Science. Congrats to the team! Click on the image or links below to see the paper, read the MIT News highlight, and watch our video on loops in polymer networks!
14 September 2016: Jonathan's paper with Peter Bruno and Mike Hemann (MIT Dept. of Biology) on using RNAi signatures to investigate the mechanism of action of 3-drug conjugated BASP nanoparticles built from platinum crosslinkers published online in JACS. Congrats to Jonathan and the whole BASP team! Click on the image below to read the paper.
8 September 2016: Alex and Julia's paper on the role of polymer chain length and branching in the structure and properties of polyMOCs published online in Macromolecules. Congrats!
1 September 2016: Ken and Mingjiang's paper on the self-assembly of "A-branch-B" diblock bottlebrush copolymers published oline in JACS. Congrats Ken and Mingjiang!
17 August 2016: Our work on structurally controlled polymers using Iterative Exponential Growth (IEG) highlighted in a wonderful feature article by Mark Peplow in Nature:
16 August 2016: Yufeng's paper on "Block Co-PolyMOCs" published in JACS. Congrats Yufeng!
3 August 2016: Welcome to new postdocs Dr. Wenxu Zhang and Dr. Mingjun Huang, as well as visiting professors Xingui Li and Meirong Huang.
1 August 2016: Former group member Dr. Yufeng Wang begins his new position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong. Congrats Yufeng!
21 July 2016: Dr. Matt Golder wins an IUPAC-SOLVAY International Award for Young Chemists for his PhD thesis work with Prof. Ramesh Jasti. Congrats Matt on this very prestigious award!
21 July 2016: Yivan's paper on IEG synthesis and bulk self-assembly of uniform diblock copolymers published online in JACS. Congrats Yivan!
15 July 2016: Former PhD student Dr. Alex Zhukhovitskiy wins a Life Sciences Research Foundation postdoctoral fellowship for his upcoming work with Prof. Dean Toste at UC Berkeley. Congrats Alex on this very prestigious fellowship, and best of luck at Berkeley!
5 July 2016: The group welcomes visiting students Yoshiki Shibuya, Wencong Wang, and Seth Freedman!
1 July 2016: Alex's paper on inserting persistent carbenes into Si-H bonds in molecules, nanoparticles, and planar surfaces appears online in JACS. Congrats Alex!
1 July 2016: Former group member Dr. Mingjiang Zhong begins his new position as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Yale University. Congrats Mingjiang!
1 July 2016: Former group member Dr. Jonathan C. Barnes begins his new position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Congrats Jonathan!
14 June 2016: The group welcomes new post-doc Dr. Farrukh Vohidov! See the group page for more info.
10 June 2016: Congratulations to Dr. Alex Zhukhovitskiy, the group's first PhD!!!
10 June 2016: The group welcomes visiting students Yasmeen AlFaraj and Yongsheng Gao! See the group page for more info.
7 May 2016: Paper with Rui Wang, Brad Olsen, and Alfredo Alexander-Katz on "Universal Cyclic Topology in Polymer Networks" appears in Physical Review Letters. Congrats to all and especially Rui! In this work, Rui was able to show that all loop defects in polymer networks are kinetically linked, such that if we can measure one (which we can) we can measure them all. Truly outstanding!
1 April 2016: Collaborative paper with Anna Balazs using simulations to study phase separation in our photo-growth gels published in Polymer Chemistry!
15 March 2016: Mao and Mingjiang's review on light-controlled radical polymerization appears online in Chemical Reviews!
25 February 2016: Jonathan Barnes accepts a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis! Congrats! See Announcement Here.
19 February 2016: Mao and Mingjiang's Chemical Reviews
article on Photo-controlled Living Radical Polymerization is accepted for publication! Details to follow. Congrats!
16 February 2016: The group welcomes new visiting student Alan Enciso and new UROP Cathy Zhang!
14 February 2016: Welcome to two new group members: Shidong (Will) Deng (visting undergraduate student from Tianjin University) and Prof. Jun Lin (visiting professor from Yunnan University).
13 January 2016: IEG+ paper highlighted in Synfacts!
4 January 2016: Jeremiah receives the 2016 Young Talent Award from the organizers of the 1st International Conference of Molecular Engineering of Polymers (MEP-1). This exciting conference will be held in October 2016 in Shanghai. Thank you to the MEP-1 organizers and, in particular, Prof. Jiandong Ding.
9 December 2015: Yufeng's baby boy Charles Hanyou Wang is born! Congrats Yufeng!
1 December 2015: Ken and Mingjiang's paper on counting primary loops in tetrafunctional and mixed-junction networks prepared using click chemistry appears online in Macromolecules!
16 November 2015: Alex and Mingjiang's paper on high branch functionality and loop rich PolyMOCs appears online in Nature Chemistry! Congrats!
12 November 2015: The group welcomes back Julia Zhao! Once a visiting undergraduate student, now a PhD student. Welcome Julia!
5 October 2015: New post-doc Matt Golder joins the group! See group page for more information. Welcome Matt!
1 October 2015: Alex and Mingjiang's paper on highly branched and loop rich "Polymer Metal-Organic-Cage" (PolyMOC) gels is accepted for publication in Nature Chemistry! Details to follow. Congrats Alex and Mingjiang, and thanks to all of our collaborators on this work!
22 September 2015: Alex and Michelle's review article on carbenes in surface chemistry is published online in Chemical Reviews! A lot of very hard work went into this fantastic paper. Congrats!
14 September 2015: IEG+ paper highlighted by Chemistry World!
7 September 2015: Jonathan's paper on the synthesis of stereo- and sequence-controlled polymers by iterative exponential growth plus side-chain functionalization (IEG+) appears online in Nature Chemistry! Congrats Jonathan!
19 August 2015: Flow-IEG paper highlighted by C&EN@ACS Boston 2015 and C&E News, Science and Technology, News of the Week!
12 August 2015: The joint Johnson/Van Humbeck group volleyball team (Jeremiah was a Van Humbeck Whale) takes 3rd place in the Chemistry Department summer beach volleyball league!
12 August 2015: Frank's paper on continuous-flow iterative exponential growth (flow-IEG) of unimolecular polymers appears in PNAS! Congrats Frank!
17 June 2015: Michelle's paper on PEGylated-NHC functionalized gold nanoparticles appears in JACS! Congrats Michelle!
30 April 2015: Mao and Michelles's paper on using 10-phenylphenothiazine as an organic photo-redox catalyst to mediate visible-light controlled radical polymerization from a trithiocarbonate appears online in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats!
20 April 2015: Jonathan wins an IUPAC-SOLVAY International Award for Young Chemists for his PhD thesis work with Prof. Fraser Stoddart. Congrats Jonathan on this very prestigious award!
9 April 2015: Ken's paper on combining tetrazine-metal coordination and Diels-Alder reactions for the synthesis of functional supramolecular gels appears online in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats Ken!
2 April 2015: The group welcomes new post-doc Dr. Qixian Chen!
1 April 2015: Congrats to Hung for receiving an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
17 March 2015: Mao's paper on improving photo-controlled radical polymerization from trithiocarbonates using continuous flow techniques appears online in Chemical Communications Congrats Mao!
4 March 2015: NHC cycloelimination paper selected for the cover of Chem. Euro. J.!
20 February 2015: Alex and Julie's paper on cycloelimination of NHCs appears online in Chem. Euro. J. Congrats!
13 February 2015: Michelle receives a WIC Travel Award for support of her trip to the ACS National Meeting in Denver, CO. Congrats Michelle!
15 January 2015: The group welcomes a new UROP: Katherine Young!
18 November 2014: Molly and Jessica's paper on nitroxide-based branched bottlebrush polymers for dual-modality imaging in vivo appears in Nature Communications. Congrats! Thanks to the Rajca group at University of Nebraska and the Hammond group here at MIT for the fruitful collaboration.
13 November 2014: The group welcomes four new PhD students: Yuwei Gu, Gihan Hewage, Yivan Jiang, and Hung Nguyen!
15 October 2014: The group welcomes two new post-docs: Dr. Mao Chen and Dr. Yufeng Wang!
3 October 2014: The group successfully escapes from a room with a zombie.
1 October 2014: Several new faces in the lab! Welcome Dr. Mao Chen, Julie Geng, and Vivian Tian!
29 August 2014: Alex is recognized with a prestigious American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowship. Congrats Alex!
12 August 2014: The lab receives a MIT-DuPont Alliance grant for the synthesis of "perfect polymers". Thank you DuPont!
8 August 2014: Angela and Yan's paper on the synthesis of pH sensitive BASP nanoparticles is accepted for publication in ACS Macro Letters. Congrats!
20 June 2014: The group welcomes visiting CMSE intern Julia Zhao!
11 June 2014: The group welcomes visiting MSRP student Leila Terrab!
10 June 2014: The lab receives NIH support for the development of organic radical MRI contrast agents. Thank you NIH.
9 June 2014: The lab receives MIT Lincoln Labs ACC support for the development of new materials for photo-controlled 3D printing. Thank you ACC.
29 May 2014:Huaxing, Eva, and Jenny's article on the application of crossover experiments to the analysis of molecular defects in polymer networks appears online in JACS!
27 May 2014: Alex receives a prestigious 2014 Intel PhD Fellowship! Congrats Alex!!
7 May 2014: Jeremiah receives a 2014 DuPont Young Professor Award! Thank you DuPont!
18 April 2014: Jeremiah receives a 2014 NSF CAREER Award! Thank you NSF!
10 April 2014:Yan and Jenny's work on the synthesis of multi-drug-loaded nanoparticles for ratiometric triplex combination cancer therapy appears in JACS. Congrats Yan and Jenny!
18 March 2014: The group receives a MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Seed Fund Grant for the development of hybrid metal-organic polymeric materials with Prof. Niels Holten-Anderson's group in MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Thank you MITEI.
20 February 2014: Jonathan receives 2014 Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF) Postdoctoral Fellowship! Congrats Jonathan!
18 February 2014: Jeremiah receives 2014 Sloan Research Fellowship! Also congrats to colleagues Mircea Dinca, Bradley Olsen, and the rest of the MIT Sloan Fellows!
6 January 2014: The group welcomes visiting student Johanna Ertl!
1 January 2014: The group welcomes two new undergraduate researchers Chew and Katherine!
15 November 2013: The group welcomes new graduate student Deborah Ehrlich. Welcome Deborah!
15 October 2013: The group welcomes new post-doc Dr. Mingjiang Zhong. Welcome Mingjiang!
11 October 2013: Jenny and Angela's JoVE article titled "Particles Without a Box" is published online. Go see Jenny and Angela make a nice series of our PEG-BASPs HERE .
7 October 2013:Alan and Angela's paper that describes the synthesis of PS-PLA Miktoarm BASPs was accepted as part of a special issue of Macromolecular Rapid Communications focused on cutting-edge polymer synthesis. Congrats Alan and Angela!
30 September 2013:Alan and Yan's paper that describes the "Brush-first and Click Method" for photo-triggered drug delivery appears online as part of a special issue of Photochemistry and Photobiology dedicated to the memory of Prof. Nick Turro.
15 September 2013: Jeremiah was selected as an ACS PMSE young investigator. He will present as part of the PMSE Young Investigator Symposium at the Spring 2014 National ACS meeting in Dallas, TX.
14 September 2013: The Johnson group has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the "Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future" (DMREF) program. Our project will focus on the design, synthesis, and computational analysis of polymer networks for emerging applications. This project will continue our strong/ongoing collaboration with Prof. Bradley Olsen's group in Chemical Engineering at MIT. Thank you NSF!
23 August 2013:Alexandra's "tetrazine-norbornene Diels-Alder model networks"paper appears in Macromolcular Symposia as part of a special issue highlighting the 2012 Polymer Networks Group conference in Jackson Hole, WY. Congrats Alexandra!
Note that while our article was in press, Professor Kristi Anseth's group published a related paper on tetrazine-norbornene hydrogels for 3D cell culture. See Kristi's excellent paper here: link.
20 August 2013: Congrats to Ken, Molly, and Angela for winning Department of Chemistry Awards for Outstanding Teaching!
20 August 2013: The Johnson and Surendranath Labs enjoyed an afternoon of intense laser tag action:
17 June 2013: The group welcomes two visiting students: Marco Messina from Mark Olsen's lab at Texas A&M and Tianyuan (Ryan) Liu from Roxbury Community College. It's great to have you both!
3 June 2013:Alex's JACS paper receives media attention:
2 February 2013: The Johnson Group on their first somewhat annual ski trip:
18 January 2013:Huaxing's "photo-controlled gel growth" Angewandte Chemie paper appears online. Congrats Huaxing!
16 January 2013 : Two bits of great news:
(1) Huaxing's "photo-controlled gel growth" paper chosen as a "Hot Paper" by the editors of Angewandte Chemie: Angewandte "Hot Papers"
(2) Huaxing's PNAS paper on counting loops highlighted in Nature News and Views: Nature News and Views
27 November 2012: "Brush-first" paper highlighted in SYNFACTS .
15 November 2012: The group welcomes four 1st-year graduate students: Angela, Ken, Michelle, and Molly!
9 November 2012: Counting loops by "S/L Method" paper appears in PNAS (click on the image below to access the paper). Congrats Huaxing, Jen, and Alexandra!
4 October 2012:"Pseudo-alternating polymers" paper appears in Macromolecules. Congrats Alan and Alex!
6 September 2012: "Brush-first" paper appears in JACS. Congrats Jenny, Alan and Alex!
19 July 2012: The Johnson Group beach volleyball team:
1 June 2012: We welcome Eva-Maria Schoen to the group! Eva-Maria is visitng from Professor David Diaz Diaz's group. We are thrilled to have her here for the summer!
20 May 2012: The Johnson group celebrates their 6-month anniversary with an exciting day of food, drink, and laser tag.
8 May 2012: Johnson group journal blog launched. Click HERE to see what the group is reading.
30 March 2012: Alan O. Burts receives an NSF graduate fellowship. Alex receive's a Morse Travel Grant for the Fall 2012 ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. Congrats Alan and Alex!
17, 24 February 2012: The Johnson group celebrates the first annual Flory Day(s)! Each student gave a presentation on fundamental aspects of synthetic polymer chemistry. Topics included chain and step-growth polymerization, gelation and network formation, controlled polymerization processes, and polymer architectures. Fun was had by all.
11 November 2011: Welcome first year graduate students Alexandra, Jenny, Alan, Alex, and Jessica to the group! Also, welcome Huaxing Zhou (post-doc) and Elisha Yadgaran (UROP)! First group meeting today.
31 October 2011: Paper that describes EPR studies of nitroxide-labeled brush polymers appears in JACS.
8 September 2011: Classes begin! For info on Jeremiah's course, 5.53 Molecular Structure and Reactivity, go here .
15 August 2011: We welcome Jen Woo to the group!
11 July 2011: The Johnson Group begins! We welcome first year MIT graduate students Melissa Donaldson and Alan Burts!
9 June 2011: Thanks to Tim Swager for inviting Jeremiah to the NSF-sponsored "Future Faculty Workshop: Diverse Leaders of Tomorrow," which was held June 19-21 at the MIT Endicott House. For more information on this year's workshop click here .
1 July 2011: The Johnson group begins!
We seek to cultivate a diverse and intellectually engaging atmosphere of collaboration, integrity, and scientific excellence: an “incubator for discovery.”
Research:
Click on the image below to view/download the 2019 Johnson Group research poster.
Current Members:
The Johnson group firmly believes that diversity is a source of scientific creativity and innovation. We seek to continually support scientists from diverse backgrounds in an effort to enhance the talents and abilities of our lab. We value equality and inclusivity both in the scientific community and globally. You are welcome here! Click on the images below to learn more about our fantastic group members!
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Elise Ackerman Graduate Student
Elise grew up in Harrisburg, South Dakota and earned her B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. During her time in Nebraska, Elise worked on the synthesis of organic MRI contrast agents under Professor Andrzej Rajca. In the Johnson Group, Elise is excited to explore the biomedical applications of polymers. Outside of the lab, she enjoys playing piano, running, and hiking.
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Yasmeen Alfaraj Graduate Student
Yasmeen was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, and moved to the United States to pursue her undergraduate studies. She received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley, where she conducted research in Prof. Omar Yaghi's Lab working on post-synthetic modifications of Covalent Organic Frameworks. She also spent a summer working on BASP nanoparticle synthesis for target drug-delivery systems in the Johnson Lab. After taking California's weather to transition from Saudi's heat, she decided to return to MIT and brave New England's winters in pursuit of a PhD focusing on polymer chemistry and organic materials. In her free time, she enjoys attending comedy clubs, hiking, fencing, and cooking.
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Ekua Beneman Visiting Student
Hello everyone! My name is Ekua Beneman and I am a junior biochemistry major at Spelman College. After undergrad, I want to pursue an MD/PhD and become a physician scientist. I want to open and fund research labs that work on gynecologic oncology. I also want to use my laboratories to give underrepresented students research experience. In my free time I like to cook, watch movies, and spend time with family!
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Sachin Bhagchandani Graduate Student, KI Graduate Fellow
Sachin was raised in Bombay, India and obtained his undergraduate education at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He spent his summers working on a myriad of polymer-based projects at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mitsui Chemicals Inc, and the Spanish National Research Council. He is currently co-advised with the Langer Lab where he previously worked as a research assistant toward designing drug delivery hydrogels as part of his master's thesis research. In his free time, he enjoys playing the guitar, soccer and traveling.
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Sawyer Cawthern Graduate Student
Sawyer is from Sharon, NH and attended the University of New Hampshire where she received her B.S. in Chemistry. At UNH Sawyer conducted research on polymer nanostructures under Professor Erik Berda. She also worked as a Laboratory Technician for Lonza Biologics in their upstream and downstream processing laboratories. Sawyer is excited to continue exploring polymer chemistries and material science at MIT. Outside of lab she is an avid hiker, skier, and scuba diver.
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Dr. Ho Fung (Edmund) Cheng Postdoc
Ho Fung (Edmund) was born and raised in Hong Kong. After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford, he worked with Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University for his PhD in chemistry. His graduate research spanned two areas: redox-switchable metal complexes and DNA-mediated nanoparticle assembly. Edmund’s interest in precision macromolecules and stimuli-responsive systems led him to join the Johnson group at MIT, where he hopes to develop chemistry that can tackle fundamental challenges in using polymers for materials or biological applications. Outside of research, Edmund enjoys time with his family and friends, board games, and easy hikes.
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Juan Cintrón Cruz Graduate Student, NSF Fellow
Juan is from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, where he earned his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico – Rio Piedras. As an undergraduate, his research focused on the synthesis and applications of metal coordination complexes for applications ranging from gas sensing to molecular magnetism. He then moved to Harvard for a post-bac program, where he switched fields into soft-matter working with Dr. David Mooney and studying polymeric hydrogel tissue adhesives. For his PhD, Juan is excited to work in the study, synthesis, and potential applications of polymer network materials with controlled topology and structure. When not in the lab, he enjoys traveling, watching movies and series, listening to podcasts, and exploring the city.
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Leticia Costa Graduate Student
Letícia grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She moved to Middletown, CT to pursue her studies at Wesleyan University, where she majored in Chemistry. There she worked under Professor David Beveridge on computational modeling and molecule system comprehension research. The aim of the project was to understand the transduction of ligand binding energy into allosteric signal transmission in proteins. As an undergraduate, Letícia spent two summers at MIT, where she worked under Professor Jeremiah Johnson on the design and synthesis of novel poly(ethylene glycol)-based brush-arm star polymers. After this experience, she decided to pursue her graduate studies at MIT and to specialize in polymer chemistry. Aside from academics, Letícia enjoys traveling, eating ice cream, watching tv series, reading, and spending time with her friends.
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Abe Herzog-Arbeitman Graduate Student
Abe grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts with his twin brother Jonah, before escaping the Northeast to attend the University of Chicago and become a "molecular engineer." While studying polyelectrolyte complexation dynamics with Dr. Matthew Tirrell, Abe realized that chemists are in fact the best at engineering molecules, and switched fields. Research stints at IBM Research with Dr. Jeannette García and at the Leibniz Institut für Festkörper und Werkstoffforschung Dresden with Dr. Daria Mikhailova lead him to the field of battery chemistry and its intersection with polymeric materials. Abe is excited to continue developing polymeric materials for energy storage and other applications with the Johnson Lab. When not in lab, Abe enjoys running, cooking, and eating spicy food.
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Keith Husted Graduate Student
I was raised in Oakville, Ontario and moved to the United States for graduate studies. I completed my Honours B.Sc. in Materials Chemistry at McGill University. I worked in the lab of Dr. Mark Andrews where I synthesized and characterized various morphologies of magnetite and lanthanide-doped magnetite nanoparticles, and monitored their impact on Rosenzweig instabilities of their respective high-concentration colloidal dispersions. I then worked under the co-supervision of Dr. Hanadi Sleiman and Dr. Dmitrii Perepichka on the synthesis and characterization alternating copolymers (oligomers) of diketopyrrolopyrroles. I am excited to continue my studies of polymer chemistry and extend my work to principles underlying control of network topology in the Johnson group at MIT.
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Alayna Johnson Graduate Student
Alayna grew up in Minneapolis, MN and attended the University of Illinois where she received her B.S. in Chemistry. At UIUC, Alayna conducted research with Professor Steve Zimmerman on the degradation of polyurethanes in mildly acidic conditions. She also interned as a Discovery Chemist at Merck, where she investigated compounds for pain management. Alayna is continuing to pursue her research interests of polymer and materials chemistry in the Johnson Group. Outside of lab, she enjoys crocheting, drawing, and painting.
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Landon Kilgallon Graduate Student
Landon grew up in Spring Hill, Tennessee. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, where he received his BS in Chemistry. At Rensselaer, Landon worked in Dr. Chang Ryu’s laboratory where he studied the curing kinetics of the photoinitiated cationic polymerization of oxetanes and epoxides. He also spent a summer in Dr. Marcus Weck’s laboratory at New York University, where he studied the fundamentals of morphology control of multicompartment micelles synthesized using ROMP. Landon is continuing to pursue his research interests of polymer and materials chemistry in the Johnson Group. Outside of academics, Landon enjoys baking bread, making pizza, and building computers.
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Kwangwook Ko Graduate Student
Kwangwook grew up in Seoul, South Korea. He attended Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), where he received his B.S. in Chemistry. As an undergraduate, he worked with Professor Seung Hwan Cho on developing new methods in asymmetric catalysis, Professor Kimoon Kim on synthesizing porphyrin-based cage molecules, and Professor Young-Tae Chang on developing novel fluorescent probes for live cell imaging and distinction. He also worked as a researcher in Professor Seung Jun Hwang's laboratory at POSTECH, where he was trained in inorganic synthesis and studied the secondary coordination effect in monometallic and multimetallic complexes. Kwangwook is excited to join the Johnson group to apply various tools of chemical synthesis to study polymer networks. Outside the lab, he enjoys taking trips and exploring restaurants and bars with friends.
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Valerie Lensch Graduate Student
Valerie grew up in Saratoga, California and attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where she received her B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry. At UCSB, Valerie conducted research with Professor Craig Hawker on the vulcanization of silicone networks using metal-free borane hydrosilylation. She also worked with Professor Samir Mitragotri on the development of platforms for targeted delivery of synergistic chemotherapy drug combinations. Valerie is now pursuing her doctoral studies at MIT under the guidance of Professor Jeremiah Johnson and Professor Laura Kiessling. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, running, and skating.
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Dr. Bin Liu Koch Institute Postdoctoral Fellow
Bin was born and grew up in Hunan Province, China. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Nankai University under guidance of Prof. Xinlin Yang, where he focused on preparation, characterization, and application of functional particles. He then moved to University of Massachusetts, Amherst and joined Prof. S. Thayumanavan’s group to pursue his PhD degree working on design, synthesis, and application of stimuli-sensitive materials. In 2020, he joined the Johnson research group as a postdoctoral associate, where he will continue to explore the beauty of polymers. In his spare time, he likes playing basketball, watching NBA games and movies.
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David Lundberg Graduate Student, NSF Fellow
I was born and raised in Minnesota and received my bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. As an undergraduate I worked with Professor Chris Macosko on melt processing and rheological characterization of polymer-clay nanocomposites. Also, I worked with Professor Paul Dauenhauer on industrial process design for the production of renewable monomers and spent a summer at 3M modeling polymerization kinetics. I’m excited to join the Johnson group so that I can learn more about polymer chemistry and apply that knowledge to making functional network materials. When I’m not working I like to mountain bike, hike, and read
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Yichen Nie Graduate Student
Bio to come soon!
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Suong Nguyen Postdoc
Su Nguyen was born and raised in Vietnam. She moved to the United States to pursue her undergraduate studies at the University of Mississippi, where she performed research on synthetic methodologies and halogen bonding interaction with Prof. Daniell Mattern and Prof. Davita Watkins. Su completed her Ph.D. in Prof. Robert Knowles’ group at Princeton University. Her graduate research focused on the development of light-driven, catalytic methodologies for small molecule synthesis and materials functionalization. In August 2022, she joined the laboratory of Professor Jeremiah Johnson where she hopes to work on polymer networks for synthetic and materials applications. Outside of the lab, Su enjoys cooking, hiking, camping, and playing board games with friends.
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Dr. Elisabeth Prince NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow
Ellie was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto where she specialized in Biological Chemistry. After finishing her undergraduate degree, she got her Ph.D. in Polymer and Materials Chemistry with Professor Eugenia Kumacheva at the University of Toronto. During her Ph.D., she explored the design, mechanical properties, and biomedical applications of synthetic filamentous hydrogels. In 2021 she joined the Johnson lab where she hopes to make some exciting discoveries with polymers! In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, exploring Boston, figure skating, learning French, and riding her bike.
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Michael Stolberg Graduate Student
I grew up in Marin County, CA, just north of San Francisco. After becoming interested in science at an early age I attended UC Berkeley for undergrad. At Berkeley I majored in physics and minored in chemistry. I also conducted research under Ron Zuckermann at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There I studied crystal structures and phase transitions of peptoids, synthetic peptoid mimics. After spending most of my life in the Bay Area I decided to move elsewhere for graduate school, and am delighted to be at MIT. In the Johnson Group I study materials for polymeric batteries among other things. In my free time I am an avid skier, love cooking and watching Jeopardy!
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Zehao Sun Graduate Student
Zehao was born and raised in the city of Hangzhou, China, well-known for the great landscape of the West Lake. At the age of 18, he traveled to Beijing and spent four years there in Peking (also known as Beijing) University to obtain his bachelor's degree in materials chemistry. As an undergraduate student, he worked with Professor Jian Pei, who is famous for his obsession in cyclization reactions, on the synthesis of boron-nitrogen-embedded polycyclic aromatic hydrcarbons and explored their potential applications in the field of organic field-effect transistors. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. degree at MIT, coadvised by Professor Jeremiah Johnson and Professor Caroline Ross.
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Taylor Talley Visiting Student
Taylor Talley is a rising senior at Spelman College where she is pursuing a degree in Biochemistry (BS). She has been a medical assistant at a COVID-19 testing site, which furthered her interest within healthcare. She will be conducting research on synthetic macromolecular chemistry explorations and applications as apart of the Johnson Group to advance connections between clinical care and scientific research. Upon completion of her undergraduate degree, Taylor plans to pursue the MD-PhD dual degree to become a Physician-Scientist to intersect science and medicine to serve underrepresented populations.
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Aiden Wang Graduate Student
Aiden was born in China and grew up in Singapore, where the endless line of cuisines nurtured his love for food and cooking (his backup career). Aiden attended the University of Cambridge in the UK, where he worked with Prof Chris Abell on fragment-based probes. After graduating, he went to Harvard as a research fellow under Prof Brian Liau, working on a PROTAC targeted at nuclear lamins. Aiden is thrilled to join the lab to learn more about polymers and apply them in biological contexts. Outside of lab, Aiden enjoys racket sports, cooking, writing pop music and occasionally annoying his roommates with his vocal performances.
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Yuyan Wang Postdoc
Yuyan was born and raised in Xinjiang Province, China. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She then moved to Northeastern University and joined Prof. Ke Zhang’s group for her PhD studies. Her graduate research focused on the design, synthesis, and applications of poly(ethylene) glycol-based bottlebrush polymers as nanocarriers for oligonucleotide therapeutics. In December 2022, she joined the Johnson research group as a postdoctoral associate, where she hopes to continue the exploration of polymers in biomedical applications. In her spare time, she likes running, watching movies, and listening to music.
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Hadiqa Zafar Graduate Student, NSF Fellow
Hadiqa spent her early years in Oakland, California, but moved to Austin, Texas as soon as she could. She stayed a stone’s throw from home to attend UT Austin and received her B.S. in Chemistry. She worked in Professor Jonathan Sessler’s lab where she learned expanded porphyrin synthesis with applications ranging from actinide complexation to theranostic studies. Applying synthesis for useful applications led her to become interested in polymer chemistry, and she hopes to continue that process in the Johnson group! In her free time she enjoys running, cycling, climbing, and hiking.
2020-current Full Professor, Department of Chemistry Program in Polymers and Soft Matter Member, Koch Institute at MIT Associate Member, Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2018-2020 Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry Program in Polymers and Soft Matter Member, Koch Institute at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2017-2018 Firmenich Career Development Associate Professor (with Tenure), Department of Chemistry Program in Polymers and Soft Matter Member, Koch Institute at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2016-2017 Firmenich Career Development Associate Professor (w/o Tenure), Department of Chemistry and Program in Polymers and Soft Matter,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2015-2016 Firmenich Career Development Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Program in Polymers and Soft Matter,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2011-2015 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Program in Polymers and Soft Matter,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2009-2011 Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Scholar with Professors Robert H. Grubbs and David A. Tirrell,
California Institute of Technology
2005-2007 Graduate research with Professor M.G. Finn,
The Scripps Research Institute, summers
2004-2009 Graduate research with Professors Nicholas J. Turro and Jeffrey T. Koberstein,
Columbia University
2001-2004 Undergraduate research with Karen L. Wooley,
Washington University in St. Louis
Education:
2009 Columbia University,
Ph. D., Chemistry
2004 Washington University in St. Louis, B.S.,
Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry
Awards and Honors:
2020 Assay Cascade Award
Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory, National Cancer Institute
2019 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist
The New York Academy of Sciences and the Blavatnik Family Foundation
2019 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award
American Chemical Society
2018 Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award
ACS Publications and the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry
2018 Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry
American Chemical Society
2018 School of Science Prize in Undergraduate Teaching
MIT
2018 Turner J. Alfrey Visiting Professorship
Michigan State University and the DOW Chemical Company
2016 Young Talent Award
China State Key Laboratory, 1st International Conference of Molecular Engineering of Polymers (MEP-1)
2015 People to Watch in the Kendall Square Biotech Hub
The Boston Globe
2014 CAREER Award
National Science Foundation
2014 DuPont Young Professor Award
DuPont
2014 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award
3M
2014 Sloan Research Fellowship
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
2014 Air Force Young Investigator Award
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
2014 PMSE Young Investigator
ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE)
2012 Junior Faculty Award
MIT Center for Materials Science and Engineering
2011 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award for New Faculty
Thieme Publishing Group
2009 Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship
Beckman Foundation and California Institute of Technology
2009 PhD Thesis Distinction
Columbia University
2009 Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Award
American Chemical Society
2008 Hammett Award for Excellence in Graduate Research
Columbia University Department of Chemistry
2006 Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowship
ACS Division of Organic Chemistry
121. Molecular bottlebrush prodrugs as mono and triplex combination therapies for multiple myeloma
Detappe A.†; Nguyen, H. V.-T.†; Jiang, Y.; Agius, M. P.; Wang, W.; Mathieu, C.; Su, N. K.; Kristufek, S. L.; Lundberg, D. J.; Bhagchandani, S.; Ghobrial, I. M.*; Ghoroghchian, P. P.*; Johnson, J. A.* Nat. Nanotechnol. 2022, accepted.
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104. Synthetic glycomacromolecules of defined valency, absolute configuration, and topology distinguish between human lectins
Hartweg, M.†; Jiang, Y.†; Yilmaz, G.; Jarvis, C. M.; Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Primo, G. A.; Monaco, A.; Beyer, V. P.; Chen, K. K.; Mohapatra, S.; Axelrod, S.; Gómez-Bombarelli, R.; Kiessling, L. L.*; Becer, C. R.*; Johnson, J. A.* JACS Au 2021, 1, 1621–1630.
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103. Lithium–metal batteries: finding the right balance
Minafra, N.; Johnson, J. A.; Shao-Horn, Y.* Nat. Energy 2021, 6, 692–693.
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99. Molecular characterization of polymer networks
Danielson, S. P. O.*; Beech, H. K.; Wang, S.; El-Zaatari, B. M.; Wang, X.; Sapir, L.; Ouchi, T.; Wang, Z.; Johnson, P. N.; Hu, Y.; Lundberg, D. J.; Stoychev, G.; Craig, S. L.*; Johnson, J. A.*; Kalow, J. A.*; Olsen, B. D.*; Rubinstein, M.* Chem. Rev. 2021, 121, 5042–5092.
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97. Design of BET inhibitor prodrugs with superior efficacy and devoid of systemic toxicities
Vohidov, F.†; Andersen, J. N.†; Economides, K. D.; Shipitsin, M. V.; Burenkova, O.; Ackley, J. C.; Vangamudi, B.; Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Gallagher, N. M.; Shieh, P.; Golder, M. R.; Liu, J.; Dahlberg, W. K.; Ehrlich, D. J.; Kim, J.; Kristufek, S. L.; Huh, S. J.; Neenan, A. M.; Baddour, J.; Paramasivan, S.; de Stanchina, E.; Gaurab, K.; Turnquist, D. J.; Saucier-Sawyer, J. K.; Kopesky, P. W.; Brady, S. W.; Jessel, M. J.; Reiter, L. A.; Chickering, D. E.; Johnson, J. A.*; Blume-Jensen, P.* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 4714–4724.
96. PolyDAT: a generic schema for polymer characterization
Lin, T.-S.; Rebello, N. J.; Beech, H. K.; Wang, Z.; El-Zaatari, B.; Lundberg, D. J.; Johnson, J. A.; Kalow, J. A.; Craig, S. L.; Olsen, B. D.* J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2021, 61, 1150–1163.
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94. Continuous dimethyldioxirane generation for polymer epoxidation
Ahlqvist, G. P.; Burke, E. G.; Johnson, J. A.*; Jamison, T. F.* Polym. Chem. 2021, 12, 489–493.
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93. Molecularly tunable polyanions for single-ion conductors and poly(solvate ionic liquids)
Zhang, W.†; Feng, S.†; Huang, M.; Qiao, B.; Shigenobu, K.; Giordano, L.; Lopez, J.; Tatara, R.; Ueno, K.; Dokko, K.; Watanabe, M.; Shao-Horn, Y.*; Johnson, J. A.* Chem. Mater. 2021, 33, 524–534.
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91. Pro-organic radical contrast agents (“pro-ORCAs”) for real-time MRI of pro-drug activation in biological systems
Nguyen, H. V.-T.†; Detappe, A.†; Harvey, P; Gallagher, N. M.; Mathieu, C.; Agius, M. P.; Zavidij, O.; Wang, W.; Jiang, Y.; Rajca, A.; Jasanoff, A.; Ghobrial, I. M.; Ghoroghchian, P. P.*; Johnson, J. A.* Polym. Chem. 2020, 11, 4768–4779.
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80. Modular polymer antigens to optimize immunity
Bennett, N. R.; Jarvis, C. M.; Murshid Alam, M.; Zwick, D. B.; Olson, J. M.; Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Johnson, J. A.; Cook, M. E.; Kiessling, L. L.* Biomacromolecules 2019, 20, 4370–4379.
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79. Antibody targeting of ultra-small nanoparticles enhances imaging sensitivity and enables longitudinal tracking of multiple myeloma
Detappe, A.; Reidy, M.; Yu, Y.; Mathieu, C.; Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Coroller, T. P.; Lam, F.; Jarolim, P.; Harvey, P.; Protti, A.; Nguyen, Q.-D.; Johnson, J. A.; Cremilleux, Y.; Tillement, O.; Ghobrial, I. M.*; Ghoroghchian, P. P.* Nanoscale 2019, 11, 20485–20496.
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77. BigSMILES: A structurally-based line notation for describing macromolecules
Lin, T.-S.; Coley, C. W.; Mochigase, H.; Beech, H. K.; Wang, W.; Wang, Z.; Woods, E.; Craig, S. L.; Johnson, J. A.; Kalow, J. A.; Jensen, K. F.; Olsen B. D.* ACS Cent. Sci. 2019, 5, 1523–1531.
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70. Revisiting the elasticity theory for real Gaussian phantom networks
Lin, T.-S.; Wang, R.; Johnson, J. A.; Olsen, B. D.* Macromolecules 2019, 52, 1685–1694.
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66. Triply loaded nitroxide brush-arm star polymers enable metal-free millimetric tumor detection by magnetic resonance imaging
Nguyen, H. V.-T.†; Detappe, A.†; Gallagher, N. M.; Zhang, H.; Harvey, P.; Yan, C.; Mathieu, C.; Golder, M. R.; Jiang, Y.; Ottaviani, M. F.; Jasanoff, A.; Rajca, A.; Ghobrial, I. M.; Ghoroghchian, P. P.*; Johnson, J. A.* ACS Nano 2018, 12, 11343–11354.
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63. Hot lithium-oxygen batteries charge ahead
Feng, S.; Lunger, J. R.; Johnson, J. A.; Shao-Horn, Y.* Science 2018, 361, 758.
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62. Reduction of liver fibrosis by rationally designed macromolecular telmisartan prodrugs
Golder, M. R.†; Liu, J.†; Andersen, J. N.; Shipitsin, M. V.; Vohidov, F.; Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Ehrlich, D. C.; Huh, S. J.; Vangamudi, B.; Economides, K. D.; Neenan, A. M.; Ackley, J. C.; Baddour, J.; Paramasivan, S.; Brady, S. W.; Held, E. J.; Reiter, L. A.; Saucier-Sawyer, J. K.; Kopesky, P. W.; Chickering, D. E.; Blume-Jensen, P.*; Johnson, J. A.* Nat. Biomed. Eng. 2018, 2, 822–830.
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61. Polymers at the interface with biology
Deming, T. J.*; Klok, H.-A.*; Armes, S. P.; Becker, M. L.; Champion, J. C.; Chen, E. Y.-X.; Heilshorn, S. C.; van Hest, J. C.-M.; Irvine, D. J.; Johnson, J. A.; Kiessling, L. L.; Maynard, H. D.; Olvera de la Cruz, M.; Sullivan, M. O.; Tirrell, M. V.; Anseth, K. S.; Lecommandoux, S.; Percec, S.; Zhong, Z.; Albertsson, A.C. Biomacromolecules 2018, 19, 3151–3162.
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58. Templated self-assembly of a PS-branch-PDMS bottlebrush copolymer
Cheng, L.; Gadelrab, K.; Kawamoto, K.; Yager, K.; Johnson, J. A.; Alexander-Katz, A.; Ross, C. A. Nano Lett. 2018, 18, 4360–4369.
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Selected Highlights: "Supramolecular polymers with a zwitterionic backbone." Synfacts 2018, 14, 0699.
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54. Scalable synthesis of multivalent macromonomers for ROMP
Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Gallagher, N. M.; Vohidov, F.; Jiang, Y.; Kawamoto, K.; Zhang, H.; Park, J. V.; Huang, Z.; Ottaviani, M. F.; Rajca, A.; Johnson, J. A.* ACS Macro Lett. 2018, 7, 472–476.
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Selected Highlights: "Paper of the month" Polymer Chemistry Blog. 2017, August 22nd.
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Selected Highlights: "New strategy produces stronger polymers" MIT News 2017, April 24th.
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39. Star polyMOCs with diverse structures, dynamics, and functions by three-component assembly
Wang, Y.; Gu, Y.; Keeler, E. G.; Park, J.; Griffin, R. G.; Johnson, J. A.* Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 188-192.
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38. Alkene metathesis-based polymerizations
Liu, J.; Johnson, J. A.* Science of Synthesis: N-Heterocyclic Carbenes in Catalytic Organic Synthesis 2016, 2, 99-126. (Book Chapter)
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Selected Highlights: "High-capacity nanoparticle" MIT News 2016, September 14th. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
35. Polymer structure dependent hierarchy in polyMOC gels
Zhukhovitskiy, A. V.; Zhao, J.; Zhong, M.; Keeler, E. G.; Alt, E. A.; Teichen, P.; Griffin, R. G.; Hore, M. J. A.; Willard, A. P.; Johnson, J. A.* Macromolecules 2016, 49, 6896-6902. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
33. Block co-polyMOCs by stepwise self-assembly
Wang, Y.; Zhong, M.; Park, J. V.; Zhukhovitskiy, A. V.; Johnson, J. A.* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 10708-10715. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
32. Iterative exponential growth synthesis and assembly of uniform diblock copolymers
Jiang, Y.; Golder, M. R.; Nguyen, H. V.-T.; Wang, Y.; Zhong, M.; Barnes, J. C.; Ehrlich, D. J. C.; Johnson, J. A.* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 9369-9372. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
26. Loops versus branch functionality in model click hydrogels
Kawamoto, K.; Zhong, M.; Wang, R.; Olsen, B. D.*; Johnson, J. A.* Macromolecules 2015, 48, 8980-8988.
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11. Brush-first and click: efficient synthesis of nanoparticles that degrade and release doxorubicin in response to light
Burts, A. O.; Liao, L.; Lu, Y. Y.; Tirrell, D. A.; Johnson, J. A.* Photochem. Photobiol. 2014, 90, 380-385.
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10. Particles without a box: brush-first synthesis of photodegradable PEG star polymers under ambient conditions
Liu, J.; Gao, A. X.; Johnson, J. A.* J. Vis. Exp. 2013, (80), e50874, DOI: 10.3791/50874
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9. Synthesis of model network hydrogels via tetrazine-olefin inverse electron demand Diels-Alder cycloaddition
Cok, A. M.; Zhou, H.; Johnson, J. A.* Macromol. Symp. 2013, 329, 108-112.
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8. Addressable carbene anchors for gold surfaces
Zhukhovitskiy, A. V.; Mavros, M. G.; Van Voorhis, T.; Johnson, J. A.* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 7418-7421.
Selected Highlights:
"Carbene For Gold Surfaces" C&E News: News of the Week 2013, 91, 11. "A New Kind of Chemical Glue" MIT News 2013, May 29th.
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5. Application of 1H DOSY for facile measurement of polymer molecular weights
Li, W.; Chung, H.; Daeffler, C.; Johnson, J. A.*; Grubbs, R. H.* Macromolecules 2012, 45, 9595-9603.
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The Johnson Group Seminar Series seeks scholars from a range of research and teaching backgrounds whose work presents new insight in organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, and adjacent disciplines. We invite student-nominated professors, post-docs, and graduate students with the ultimate goal of enriching academic discourse in and around chemistry at MIT.
Registration can be done through the following link: Registration
Fall 2021 Schedule:
Andre Isaacs
October 12th 3-4pm EST
Dawanee Poree
October 19th 2:30-3:30pm EST
Gerry Brown
November 30th 3-4pm EST
Megan Robertson
December 7th 3-4pm EST
Seminar Flyer:
Past Seminars:
Spring 2021 Schedule:
Toby Nelson
January 19th
Darryl Boyd
February 16th
Javid Rzayev
March 16th
Domenic di Mondo
April 20th
Parisa Mehrkhodavandi
May 18th
Pinar Ackora
June 8th
Thanks to Dominic DiMondo for telling us about Green Mantra and the pioneering advanced recycling they do. Thanks to Javid Rzayev for his great talk on bottlebrush copolymer self assembly! Thanks Dr. Darryl Boyd (@DrBoyd_Chemist) for the great #JGSS talk about environmentally friendly polymer science outreach!!! Dr. Toby Nelson gave an excellent talk on conducting polymers and kicked off the Spring Semester of JGSS. Thanks Toby!
Fall 2020
The innagural season of the Johnson Group Seminar series was an amazing success! We would love to thank all of our speakers who enlightened us to the amazing work their groups do. Everyone who listened from over 33 countries and 110 universities, and all the volunteers who made the seminar series possible! Please join us in 2021 for the next set of fantastic speakers!
