The research currently underway in the group centers around questions in polymer physics and microfluidic technologies. On the polymer side, current research focuses on (i) the dynamics of DNA in nanofluidic systems and (ii) self-assembly of block polymers, the latter in collaboration with experimentalists in the polymer group at Minnesota. On the microfluidics side, we have been working closely with Dan Frisbie on the development of new biosensors based on printed electronics and DNA aptamers.

Research Web Page

Support Kevin Dorfman's Research

• Postdoc, Institut Curie (France), 2002-2005
• Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, MIT, 2002
• M.S. in Chemical Engineering, MIT, 2001
• B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Penn State University, 1999

Honors and Awards

• Distinguished McKnight University Professor (UMN), 2020
• NSF Special Creativity Extension, 2018
• Mid-Career Award of the AES Electrophoresis Society, 2014
• AIChE Colburn Award, 2012
• Guillermo E. Borja Award (UMN), 2012
• Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, 2010
• DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2009
• Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, 2007
• NSF CAREER Award, 2007
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award, 2006
• Human Frontier Science Program Career Development Award, 2006

Selected Publications

• Kevin D. Dorfman and Prodromos Daoutidis, Numerical Methods with Chemical Engineering Applications, Cambridge University Press (2017)
• Pengyu Chen and Kevin D. Dorfman, Gaming self-consistent field theory: Generative block polymer phase discovery. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 120, e2308698120 (2023).
• Sarah C. Seeger, Timothy P. Lodge and Kevin D. Dorfman, Mechanism of escape of a single chain from a diblock copolymer micelle. Macromolecules 55, 10220-10228 (2022).
• Benjamin R. Magruder, So Jung Park, Ryan P. Collanton, Frank S. Bates and Kevin D. Dorfman, Laves phase field in a diblock copolymer alloy. Macromolecules 55, 2991-2998 (2022).
• Kevin D. Dorfman, Frank-Kasper phases in block polymers. Macromolecules 54, 10251-10270 (2021).
• Anshul Chawla, Frank S. Bates, Kevin D. Dorfman and David C. Morse, Identifying a critical micelle temperature in simulations of disordered asymmetric diblock copolymer melts. Physical Review Materials 5, L092601 (2021).
• Guo Kang Cheong, Frank S. Bates and Kevin D. Dorfman, Symmetry breaking in particle-forming diblock polymer/homopolymer blends. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 117, 16764-16769 (2020).
• Abhiram Reddy, Michael B. Buckley, Akash Arora, Frank S. Bates, Kevin D. Dorfman and Gregory M. Grason, Stable Frank-Kasper phases of self-assembled, soft matter spheres. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 115, 10233-10238 (2018).
• Hui-Min Chuang, Jeffrey G. Reifenberger, Han Cao and Kevin D. Dorfman, Sequence-dependent persistence length of long DNA. Physical Review Letters 119, 227802 (2017).
• Kyungtae Kim, Morgan W. Schulze, Akash Arora, Ronald M. Lewis III, Marc A. Hillmyer, Kevin D. Dorfman and Frank S. Bates. Thermal processing of diblock copolymer melts mimics metallurgy. Science 356, 520-523 (2017).
• Akash Arora, Jian Qin, David C. Morse, Kris T. Delaney, Glenn H. Fredrickson, Frank S. Bates, and Kevin D. Dorfman, Broadly accessible self-consistent field theory for block polymer materials discovery. Macromolecules 49, 4675-4690 (2016).