University of Michigan College of Engineering Rackham Graduate School Macro Messenger VOLUME XXVIII 2017 The Newsletter of the Director Mark Banaszak Holl’s Message Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program Dear Alumni and Friends, I hope you had as exciting, fun, and productive a year as our Macro graduate students! I am delighted to share some highlights from the past few months. In November I traveled around the world with four Macro students for a scientific and cultural exchange at the Nara Institute of Science & Technology (NAIST). Two NAIST faculty and six students had visited for the Macro symposium in October and we were excited to have the opportunity to visit their institution. Modern day science and engineering challenges are global in nature and impact, and we are delighted to be continuing these important efforts initiated by former Director Rick Laine. Our interactions and collaborations with industry continued to grow this term. The Director’s Message..1-2 ACS POLY/PMSE student chapter hosted campus visits by number companies as well Macro News...........3 as site visits to local company labs. We were also delighted to receive summer and Symposium.........4-7 fall fellowship support from 3M and PPG for our Ph.D. program. Their contributions Research News......8-11 provided support to seven Macro students. These interactions and support are Faculty News........12 immensely important for training the next generation of scientists and engineers. Student News......12-15 Giving................16 Our 41st Annual Symposium, “Emergent Polymer Science & Engineering” was organized by Professors Kenichi Kuroda and Tim Scott in addition to Ph.D. candidates Leanna Foster (Kuroda) and Ryan Hall (Larson). The events began on Wednesday with a top-noth set of professional development sessions and we again concluded that evening with a networking event in downtown Ann Arbor at the Zingerman’s Greyline space. There was great attendance from faculty, students, and our industrial partners and it provided a wonderful opportunity for students to interact with the symposium speakers. If you are coming for a future symposium, you don’t want to miss this! Our plenary speaker this year was Professor Craig Hawker, the 2017 winner of the Overberger International Prize. We were fortunate to have strong industrial support for this year’s symposium with BASF, P&G, PPG, and Wacker all contributing. Continued on Page 2 Director’s Message (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1) Professors Kennedy & Zhang Join Macro We are particularly thankful for help supporting the networking dinner, Professor Robert Kennedy is the Hobart H. Willard Distinguished University Professor poster awards for professional development and travel, and travel grants to of Chemistry and Chair of the Chemistry Department. His group, which includes Macro Ph.D. help undergraduate students student Thomas White, aims to “develop analytical instrumentation and methods that can help solve problems of biological significance.” Current areas of research application include This fall we added fifteen impressive new graduate students to the Macro endocrinology, neurochemistry, and screening for drug discovery. program (7 Ph.D. and 8 Master’s). Five of the seven Ph.D. students have MACRO MESSENGER opted for the research rotation program. The rotation program, unique in the Professor Yang Zhang is a Professor of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and is published by: polymer science and engineering field, remains a popular choice for incoming Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Medical School. His group aims to understand students. Lastly, this term we also welcomed Professors Robert Kennedy relationships between protein sequence, structure, and function. The key focus of the group Macromolecular Science and Engineering (Chemistry) and Yang Zhang (Medical School) to the Macro program. is to develop “bioinformatics algorithms to predict 3-dimensional protein structure from the University of Michigan amino acid sequence and deduce the biological function of proteins”. 3006E Building 28 NCRC 2800 Plymouth Road Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year! Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2800 (734) 763-2316 Professor Sarah Calve (‘06, Arruda) Wins NIH Director’s New Innovator Award Erin Easterling, Purdue University Program Director Mark Banaszak Holl Sarah Calve, assistant professor at Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, received the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award. The High- Risk, High-Reward Research Program award supports exceptionally creative scientists Newsletter Editor Adam Mael using highly innovative approaches to tackle major challenges in biomedical research. Her research offers potential future applications in the regeneration of diseased or Macro Executive Committee damaged tissue by looking at the separate formation and then seamless connection of muscle to tendon to bone. Mark Banaszak Holl Calve hypothesizes that there are overlooked structural cues that instruct how muscle, tendon and bone connect Jinsang Kim Anne J. McNeil and align during development. By identifying these cues that nature uses to build a functional musculoskeletal Peter X. Ma system, “we will establish guidelines that tissue engineers can use to restore damaged interfaces between muscle and tendon, and tendon and bone,” she said. The Regents of the University of Michigan Calve said her lab, the Musculoskeletal Extracellular Matrix Laboratory, has developed novel methods Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc to map the composition, organization and mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix over the course Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor Laurence B. Deitch, Bloomfield Hills of musculoskeletal development. She also has pioneered optical clearing methods to image the 3D matrix Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe architecture of biomarkers deep within developing and adult musculoskeletal tissues, all of which will go into Denise Illitch, Bingham Farms her research of the potential structural cues. Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann Arbor Andrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe Park Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor The $1.5 million award will fund Calve’s project over the next 5 years. Mark S. Schlissel ( ) ex officio The honor stimulates innovative research by supporting the small group of creative investigators who propose new approaches with the potential to produce a major impact on a broad area of biomedical or behavioral research. In addition to this honor, Calve was recently awarded a 5-year Bioengineering Research Grant from the NIH, which will provide up to $1.2 million to investigate the role of embryonic motility on musculoskeletal development. 2 macro.engin.umich.edu MACROMOLECULAR SCIENCE & ENGINEERING 41st Annual Macro Symposium 41st Annual Macro Symposium Emergent Polymer Science & Engineering Emergent Polymer Science & Engineering Macro hosted the 41st Annual Symposium on October 18th & 19th. Like last year, the first day focused on Mr. Douglas Dollemore, a Senior Science Writer at the American Chemical Society, presented on “Effective professional development short courses with the main research symposium happening the following day. The Science Communication”. His session engaged participants in a variety of exercises to help teach strategies for short courses focused on the theme, “Beyond Academia: Scientific Career Pathways”. translating their work into compelling and understandable language. The events drew close to 175 participants from programs across U-M, 30 external institutions, and several industry partners. Over 100 students joined for the Wednesday short courses (next page) and networking dinner. Dr. Drosback (center) Mr. Dollemore (center) Dr. Meredith M. Drosback spoke about career pathways in public service and policy. Dr. Drosback was previously Assistant Director for Education and Physical Sciences in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. Dr. Drosback’s career pathway and experiences offered lessons for those interested in policy and service careers at a wide range of levels. Prof. Oleg Gang, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, discussed his experiences Industry Sponsors working in a national laboratory, and what one could expect pursuing a career and research within the national labs. Prior to joining Columbia Prof. Gang led the Soft and Bio-Nanomaterials group at Brookhaven National A very special thanks to PPG, P&G, BASF, and Wacker for their generous support of the symposium. Their Laboratory. sponsorship provided support for the networking dinner, poster awards, undergraduate travel grants, speaker travel, and more. Thank you! Dr. Jeannette M. Garcia discussed “Life as an Industrial Polymer Scientist at IBM Research” in her talk. In 2017 Garcia was the first recipient of the ACS POLY Division’s Young Industrial Polymer Chemist Award; she spoke about her experiences at IBM and tips for success in industry jobs. On Wednesday Dr. Garcia also presented on her work at IBM, discussing efforts on the use of waste polymers as monomer feedstock for the synthesis of value-added materials and design of materials for recyclability. Dr. Garcia Dr. Crystal G. Morrison, a Macro alum (‘03, Rasmussen) presented to students on “Taking Control of Your Personal Brand”. Dr. Morrison’s message highlighted the importance of a personal brand and image, how students can work to promote themselves when looking for jobs, and what pitfalls to avoid when doing so. Dr. Morrison works at PPG, where she is the Associate Director of R&D for Industrial