Electrostatic Effects in Polymers and Soft Matter

Electrostatic Effects in Polymers and Soft Matter

We use theory and computer simulation to study a variety of charged polymer and soft matter systems, with a particular focus on the role of electrostatic correlations.

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Nucleation or Barrier Crossing

Nucleation or Barrier Crossing

We develop novel density functional theories and self-consistent-field theories that can accurately describe the inhomogeneous structures to study the nucleation/barrier crossing in a number of soft-matter and polymer systems

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Dynamics and Rheology of Associating Polymers

Dynamics and Rheology of Associating Polymers

We are studying how polymers diffuse in physically crosslinked gel network. We are also investigating how the networks break and reform under large/rapid deformation and how this structural rearrangement in turn affects their rheological behavior.

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Recent News

    • May 2023: Pierre Walker passed his candidacy exam. Congrats, Pierre!
    • April 2023: Yasemin Basdogan has joined the University of Rochester as an assistant professor in chemical engineering. Congratulations, Prof. Basdogan!
    • April 2023: Chris Balzer has successfully defended his thesis and will join the Fredrickson group at UCSB as a postdoc. Congratulations, Dr. Balzer!
    • May 2022: Andy Ylilato has successfully defended his thesis and will work as a machine learning and computer vision software engineer at Ceevra, a start-up in San Francisco. Congratulations, Dr. Ylitalo!
    • May 2022: Hyeongjoo Row has successfully defended his thesis and is now joining the Mandadapu group at UC Berkeley. Congratulations, Dr. Row!
    • Apri 2022: Congrats to Andrew Ylitalo (2018), Hyeongjoo Row (2018), and Sam Varner (2021) for being awarded the Constantin G. Economou Memorial Prize in Chemical Engineering for their outstanding research accomplishments during their candidacy period!
    • November 2021: Alexandros Tsamopoulos passed his candidacy exam. Congratulations, Alexandre!
    • October 2021: Sam Varner passed his candidacy exam. Congratulations, Sam!
    • August 2021: Ben Ye passed his candidacy exam. Congratulations, Ben!
    • July 2021: Yasemin Basdogan got accepted to the MIT Rising Stars Program. Congratulations, Yasemin!
    • June 2021: Dorian Bruch passed his candidacy exam. Congratulations, Dorian!
    • April 2021: Sam Varner has been awarded the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations, Sam!
    • March 2020: Andy Ylitalo received the Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award from the Forum on Industrial Applications of Physics at APS. Congratulations, Andy!
    • February 2020: Chang Yun Son joined Pohang University of Science and Technology as an assistant professor of chemistry. Congratulations, Chang Yun!
    • September 2019: Chris Balzer passed his candidacy exam. Congratulations, Chris!
    • September 2019: Huikuan Chao joined Dow Chemical Company as a Senior Research Specialist. Congratulations, Huikuan!
    • June 2019: Ahmad Omar has successfully defended his thesis and is now joining the Geissler group at UC Berkeley. Congratulations, Dr. Omar!
    • May 2019: Ahmad Omar has been awarded the prestigious Schmidt Science Fellow. News link. Congratulations, Ahmad!
    • April 2019: Chris Balzer has been awarded the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations, Chris!
    • April 2019: Andy Ylitalo has been awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Congratulations, Andy!
    • Feb. 2019: Bilin Zhuang has been offered a tenure-track assistant professor position at Yale-NUS College. Congratulations, Dr. Zhuang!
    • Nov. 2018: JJ has joined as a professor of physics at Chinese Science of Academy, China. Congratulations, JJ!
    • Sep. 2018: Pengfei has joined as a professor of physics at Donghua University, China. Congratulations, Pengfei!
    • Aug. 2018: Kevin successfully defended his thesis and is now joining the Fredrickson group at UCSB. Congratulations, Dr. Shen!

Our offices are located in the first floor of the Eudora Hull Spalding Laboratory of Engineering.
Stop by and visit with us!

Zhen-Gang Wang Group
Chemical Engineering MC 210-41
California Institute of Technology
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91125