Upcoming Seminars & Events

Professor Tim Lodge
Department of Chemistry
Department of Chemical Engineering & Material Sciences
University of Minnesota

Spontaneous Fission and Fusion of Block Copolymer Micelles

Block copolymers provide a remarkably versatile platform for achieving desired nanostructures by self-assembly, with dimensions ranging from a few nanometers up to microns. In particular, block copolymer micelles in selective solvents are of interest across a range of technologies, including drug delivery, imaging, catalysis, lubrication, and extraction. While block copolymers generally adopt the morphologies familiar in small molecule surfactants and lipids (i.e., spherical micelles, worm- like micelles, and vesicles), one key difference is that polymeric micelles are typically not at equilibrium. This is a result of strong segregation; the length of the core-forming block, coupled to a large interfacial tension, make it difficult for changes to re- arrange once micelles are formed. The kinetic barriers involved can easily approach 100 kBT. When micelles are significantly larger or smaller than the equilibrium size, fission and fusion mechanisms, respectively, can become operative. We will describe measurements using dynamic light scattering, small-angle X-ray scattering, and liquid-phase TEM to follow both processes in detail, with some remarkable and unexpected results. For example, the data suggest that fission proceeds through a metastable intermediate state, which is not anticipated by theory. Fusion is “quantized”, in the sense that a population of micelles completely undergoes one fusion event to double the average aggregation number, before a second or third event takes place, suggesting that the rate constant for fusion is a strongly decreasing function of micelle size. In order for fusion to be observed, it is necessary to reduce the steric barrier providing by the corona chains, which can be achieved by systematically reducing the solvent quality for the corona block.

Tim Lodge

Tim Lodge graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. cum laude in Applied Mathematics in 1975. He completed his PhD in Chemistry at Wisconsin in 1980 with John Schrag, and then spent 20 months as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at NIST, with Charles Han. Since 1982, he has been on the Chemistry faculty at Minnesota and, in 1995, he also became a Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science. In 2013, he was appointed a Regents Professor, the University’s highest academic rank. Tim Lodge has been recognized with the American Physical Society (APS) Polymer Physics Prize (2004), the International Scientist Award from the Society of Polymer Science, Japan, (2009), the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Polymer Chemistry (2010), the Hermann Mark Award (2015) and the Paul Flory Education Award (2018) of the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry, the Sustained Research Award from the Neutron Scattering Society of America (2020), and the Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award, ACS Rubber Division (2026. He has been elected to Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the APS, the ACS, and the Neutron Scattering Society of America. In 2016, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2024 to the National Academy of Engineering. From 2001 – 2017, Tim Lodge served as the Editor-in-Chief of the ACS journal Macromolecules. In 2011, he became the founding Editor for ACS Macro Letters. From 2005 – 2022 he was Director of the NSF-funded Materials Research Science & Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Minnesota. He has authored or co-authored over 540 papers in the field of polymer science, and advised or co-advised over 150 PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. His research interests center on the structure and dynamics of polymer liquids, including solutions, melts, blends, and block copolymers, with particular emphases on self-assembling systems using rheological, scattering and microscopy techniques.

Hosted by Professor Theresa Reineke

Professor Jessica Lamb
Department of Chemistry
University of Minnesota

Harnessing the potential of strong, main-chain dipoles in polymers

The core of physical organic chemistry is the relation of an organic (macro)molecule’s chemical structure to its reactivity/properties. This simple concept is a powerful tool to understand fundamental mechanisms, solve problems, improve sustainability, and establish design principles across a wide variety of fields. The Lamb group takes a physical organic approach to problems at the interface of polymer science and catalysis to transform how materials are made and un-made. Much of our work has been on polyoxazolidinones (POxa), which are an emerging polyurethane subclass for high-performance thermoplastic/ electronic applications that have high thermal stability due to the five-membered heterocycles incorporated into the polymer backbone. We address many synthetic limitations of POxa and systematically investigate their structure- property relationships, particularly the effect of the strong, oriented Oxa dipole on material properties.

Jessica Lamb

Jessica Lamb is an Assistant Professor and McKnight Land-Grant Professor at the University of Minnesota, where her group has worked at the interface of physical organic, catalysis, and polymer chemistry since 2020. Their current research interests include studying polymers with non-ionic dipoles in the backbone, understanding N-heterocyclic carbene adducts for catalysis and energy applications, and combining disparate mechanisms of polymerization to access novel block copolymers. Jessica is the recipient of the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2026), AAAS Marion Milligan Mason Award (2025), the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (2022), the ACS Division of Professional Relations (PROF) Leadership Development Award (2022), and was an ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Young Investigator and ACS PMSE Early Investigator. Before starting her independent career, Jessica was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at MIT with Prof. Jeremiah Johnson, an NSF graduate research fellow at Cornell University with Prof. Geoffrey Coates (PhD 2017), and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Chemistry from the University of North Dakota (2012).

Hosted by Professor Marc Hillmyer

Professor Sapna Sarupria
Department of Chemistry
University of Minnesota

Formulations for Biologics: A Tango Between Biomolecules and Solvent Governs Stability

Development and distribution of biological formulations – including therapeutic proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy products – is bottlenecked by the cold chain requirement, which preserves these formulations at refrigerated temperatures. To alleviate the need for cold storage, small molecule excipients can be added to formulations to improve temperature stability. However, this process is iterative, time-consuming, and expensive. We leverage computer simulations to elucidate the molecular-level details of excipient mechanisms, contributing to a more information-driven approach to excipient selection. Our studies highlight that molecular systems behave not because of strong interactions, but because of weak, solvent-mediated effects that affect the thermodynamics and dynamics of the system. In this talk, I will show how coordinated solvent and biomolecular interactions modulate the molecular stability and self-assembly of biomolecules. I will demonstrate how understanding molecular mechanisms can enable rational design of formulations and developing descriptors that can unify the broad range of mechanisms through which excipients affect biomolecular stability. Lastly, I will describe novel computational approaches developed in our lab that enable computationally feasible studies of stability of virus capsids in various excipient solutions. In my talk, I will highlight and discuss the key results from this work collectively pushing the frontiers of rational design of formulations for stable biologics.

Sapna Sarupria

Dr. Sapna Sarupria is an associate professor in the department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMN). Before joining UMN in Fall 2021, she was an associate professor in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University. She received her Master’s from Texas A & M University, her Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton University. Her research focuses on developing and applying molecular simulations to study materials relevant to health and energy. She received the NSF CAREER award, ACS COMP Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Clemson’s Board of Trustees Award of Excellence and the CoMSEF Impact Award. She is the co- founder of the NSF-funded Institute of Computational Molecular Science Education (I-CoMSE), co-organizer of virtual seminar series “Statistical Thermodynamics and Molecular Simulations (STMS)”, associate editor for LiveCoMS -- Living Journal of Computational Molecular Simulation, co- Director the NSF-funded National Research Traineeship program (NRT) Data-Driven Discovery and Engineering from Atoms to Processes (3DEAP), co-chair of 2028 Water Gordon Research Conference, and elected trustee of the not-for-profit Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE).

Hosted by Professor Ilja Siepmann

Professor Amanda Morris
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Tech

From Catalysis to Drug Delivery: Photodynamic Responses in MOFs

Metal–organic frameworks offer a unique platform for controlling chemical reactivity through precise structural and electronic design, yet their behavior under photoexcitation remains incompletely understood. This talk explores how photoinduced metal–ligand bond dynamics in MOFs can be deliberately harnessed to enable function rather than failure. Using Fe-carboxylate frameworks such as MIL-101(Fe) as a model system, we demonstrate that ligand-to-metal charge- transfer excitation transiently weakens metal–carboxylate bonds, generating short-lived coordination vacancies that can participate in catalytic reactions. Time-resolved vibrational and electronic spectroscopies reveal that the lifetime of these photodissociated states can be tuned over orders of magnitude through linker functionalization, directly influencing photocatalytic behavior, including carbon dioxide reduction. Extending this concept beyond catalysis, we show that larger photoinduced structural changes can be leveraged for controlled framework exfoliation and cargo release, enabling light-triggered drug delivery and photodynamic therapeutic applications. Together, these results establish photodynamic bonding as a general design principle for MOFs, illustrating how excited- state coordination chemistry can be programmed to drive reactivity, transport, and on-demand material response across energy and biomedical contexts.

Amanda Morris

Amanda Morris is a Professor of Inorganic and Energy Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Tech. She received her BS from Penn State University, her PhD from Johns Hopkins University, and completed postdoctoral training at Princeton University. Her research program focuses on understanding light–matter interactions in molecular and extended materials, with particular emphasis on how excited-state processes govern catalysis, charge transport, and structural dynamics in metal–organic frameworks. Morris’s work spans photocatalysis for energy conversion, photoinduced coordination chemistry, and light-triggered material responses, combining electrochemistry, spectroscopy, and time- resolved techniques. She is a recipient of numerous honors, including an NSF CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar Award. Morris serves as an Associate Editor of Chemical Physics Reviews and as an American Chemical Society Expert in Sustainable Energy. She is active in community leadership, serving as the Chair of the Inorganic Division of the American Chemical Society and the chair-elect of the InterAmerican Photochemical Society.

Hosted by Professor Gwendolyn Bailey

Professor Carol Hall
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
North Carolina State University

Alison Campbell Brewer
Eli Lilly
 

Professor Scott Miller
Department of Chemistry
Yale University

Asymmetric Catalysis in Structurally and Mechanistically Complex Molecular Environments

This lecture will describe recent developments resulting from our efforts to develop catalysts for asymmetric reactions, in particular for the preparation of densely functionalized, stereochemically complex structures. Over time, our foci have been on enantioselectivity, site- selectivity and chemoselectivity. In much of our current work, we are studying issues of enantioselectivity as a prelude to the extrapolation of catalysis concepts to more complex molecular settings where multiple issues are presented in a singular substrate. Complex natural products, for example, will be presented as quintessentially complex scaffolds for catalytic modification. Many of the catalysts we have studied are peptide-based, and as such have relied on selectivity that may be traced to decisive multivalent interactions between catalysts and substrates. These mechanistis themes, and their associated ambiguities – especially in light of catalyst or substrate conformational dynamics – will figure strongly in the lecture. Finally, several interesting collaborations – often unanticipated by us – will be discussed.

Scott Miller

Scott J. Miller received his B.A. (1989), M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1994) from Harvard University, where he worked with David Evans as a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Subsequently, he traveled to the California Institute of Technology where he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with Robert Grubbs until 1996. For the following decade, he was a member of the faculty at Boston College, until joining the faculty at Yale University in 2006. In 2008, he was appointed as the Irénée du Pont Professor of Chemistry, and in 2023 as a Sterling Professor of Chemistry. At Yale, he served as Chair of the Chemistry Department from 2009-2015, and as the Divisional Director for Science from 2015-2017. Professor Miller’s research program focuses on asymmetric catalysis. His group employs strategies that include catalyst design, the development of techniques for catalyst screening, and the application of new catalysts to the preparation of biologically active agents. Several current interests are (a) the selective functionalization of complex molecules, (b) the exploration of analogies between synthetic catalysts and enzymes, (c) the discovery of effective antibiotics despite increasing resistance, and (d) the engineering of the biosynthetic apparatus for nonextant bond-formation. Scott Miller’s awards and honors include: National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1999), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2000), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2000), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society (2004), Yoshimasa Hirata Memorial Gold Medal of Nagoya University (2009), National Institutes of Health MERIT Award (2011), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2016), Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Max Tishler Prize, Harvard University (2017), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2018), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship for Research (2019), Member, National Academy of Sciences (2020), Remsen Award, Maryland Section of the American Chemical Society and Johns Hopkins University (2023), Philadelphia Organic Chemistry Club Allan Day Award (2025), Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis of the American Chemical Society (2026). In 2024, he was also awarded the Wasserman Prize for Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Chemistry at Yale University, and in 2026, the Dylan Hixon ‘88 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences, Yale College Professor Miller has served in number of capacities for public and private organizations. For example, he recently completed terms on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the Advisory Council for Center for Scientific Review, both convened by the Director of the National Institutes of Health. He now serves as Editor-in- Chief of The Journal of Organic Chemistry.

Hosted by Professor Courtney Roberts

Professor Scott Miller
Department of Chemistry
Yale University

Asymmetric Catalysis at the Interface of Small Molecules and Enzymes

Asymmetric catalysis has advanced rapidly as a discipline as a result of powerful modalities. Transition metal complexes, organocatalysts and biocatalysts have all played critical roles. Probably critical from the start, and in all three of these approaches to the field, noncovalent interactions are now appreciated to play a decisive role as determinants of selectivity. Peptide-based catalysts have also proven to be a central platform for the systematic study of multifunctional interaction arrays as determinants of selectivity in a wide variety of reactions. Design of new catalytic functionalities has been central to expanding the list of selective reactions and mechanistic paradigms that operate amidst the plethora of selectivity-defining interactions that are now signatures of peptide-catalyzed processes. This lecture will focus on some of the newest developments with peptide-based catalysts, with the goal of placing the work in the broad context of catalysis most generally.

Scott Miller

Scott J. Miller received his B.A. (1989), M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1994) from Harvard University, where he worked with David Evans as a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Subsequently, he traveled to the California Institute of Technology where he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with Robert Grubbs until 1996. For the following decade, he was a member of the faculty at Boston College, until joining the faculty at Yale University in 2006. In 2008, he was appointed as the Irénée du Pont Professor of Chemistry, and in 2023 as a Sterling Professor of Chemistry. At Yale, he served as Chair of the Chemistry Department from 2009-2015, and as the Divisional Director for Science from 2015-2017. Professor Miller’s research program focuses on asymmetric catalysis. His group employs strategies that include catalyst design, the development of techniques for catalyst screening, and the application of new catalysts to the preparation of biologically active agents. Several current interests are (a) the selective functionalization of complex molecules, (b) the exploration of analogies between synthetic catalysts and enzymes, (c) the discovery of effective antibiotics despite increasing resistance, and (d) the engineering of the biosynthetic apparatus for nonextant bond-formation. Scott Miller’s awards and honors include: National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1999), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2000), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2000), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society (2004), Yoshimasa Hirata Memorial Gold Medal of Nagoya University (2009), National Institutes of Health MERIT Award (2011), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2016), Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Max Tishler Prize, Harvard University (2017), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2018), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship for Research (2019), Member, National Academy of Sciences (2020), Remsen Award, Maryland Section of the American Chemical Society and Johns Hopkins University (2023), Philadelphia Organic Chemistry Club Allan Day Award (2025), Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis of the American Chemical Society (2026). In 2024, he was also awarded the Wasserman Prize for Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Chemistry at Yale University, and in 2026, the Dylan Hixon ‘88 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences, Yale College Professor Miller has served in number of capacities for public and private organizations. For example, he recently completed terms on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the Advisory Council for Center for Scientific Review, both convened by the Director of the National Institutes of Health. He now serves as Editor-in- Chief of The Journal of Organic Chemistry.

Hosted by Professor Courtney Roberts

Professor Scott Miller
Department of Chemistry
Yale University

Comparative Catalysis

At the dawn of asymmetric catalysis, most organic chemists viewed highly selective catalysts as rare needles to be found in haystacks. Decades later, excellent catalysts are still hard to define, and to develop. Yet, progress in the field has been rapid, and it is now often possible to find more than one type of catalyst that is effective for a given enantioselective reaction. When that happens, are the catalysts similar? Are similar functional outcomes born of mechanistic homology? Or are there generally multiple mechanistic scenarios that can lead to highly selective catalysts for the same reaction? What lessons for catalyst design may be extracted from comparative studies of this nature? This lecture will present the results of comparative studies of catalysts that are often viewed as privileged to peptide-based catalysts that have been advanced to catalyze similar reactions.

Scott Miller

Scott J. Miller received his B.A. (1989), M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1994) from Harvard University, where he worked with David Evans as a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Subsequently, he traveled to the California Institute of Technology where he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with Robert Grubbs until 1996. For the following decade, he was a member of the faculty at Boston College, until joining the faculty at Yale University in 2006. In 2008, he was appointed as the Irénée du Pont Professor of Chemistry, and in 2023 as a Sterling Professor of Chemistry. At Yale, he served as Chair of the Chemistry Department from 2009-2015, and as the Divisional Director for Science from 2015-2017. Professor Miller’s research program focuses on asymmetric catalysis. His group employs strategies that include catalyst design, the development of techniques for catalyst screening, and the application of new catalysts to the preparation of biologically active agents. Several current interests are (a) the selective functionalization of complex molecules, (b) the exploration of analogies between synthetic catalysts and enzymes, (c) the discovery of effective antibiotics despite increasing resistance, and (d) the engineering of the biosynthetic apparatus for nonextant bond-formation. Scott Miller’s awards and honors include: National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1999), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2000), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2000), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society (2004), Yoshimasa Hirata Memorial Gold Medal of Nagoya University (2009), National Institutes of Health MERIT Award (2011), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2016), Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Max Tishler Prize, Harvard University (2017), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2018), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship for Research (2019), Member, National Academy of Sciences (2020), Remsen Award, Maryland Section of the American Chemical Society and Johns Hopkins University (2023), Philadelphia Organic Chemistry Club Allan Day Award (2025), Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis of the American Chemical Society (2026). In 2024, he was also awarded the Wasserman Prize for Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Chemistry at Yale University, and in 2026, the Dylan Hixon ‘88 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences, Yale College Professor Miller has served in number of capacities for public and private organizations. For example, he recently completed terms on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the Advisory Council for Center for Scientific Review, both convened by the Director of the National Institutes of Health. He now serves as Editor-in- Chief of The Journal of Organic Chemistry.

Hosted by Professor Courtney Roberts

Lafe Purvis
Meta Platforms, Inc.