Joshua Lequieu, PhD, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant for his project on chemically specific polymer models using field-theoretic simulations. Lequieu is developing a new computational approach to simulate how molecular-level changes influence the overall structure and properties of polymer materials.
The project aims to create a multi-scale simulation method that integrates two computational modeling techniques into one unified framework, capturing both microscopic chemistry and larger-scale polymer structures without resorting to approximations. Early tests show that this new technique can significantly speed up simulations without losing detail or accuracy.
Over the next five years, Lequieu’s group will expand this approach, add more chemical details, and apply it to study self-assembling bio-inspired polymers. The grant also includes an educational component, supporting the NSF’s mission of integrating research with science education. This includes plans for a “Girls Who Code” club, an undergraduate research program through the university’s cooperative education initiative, and new online lectures and assignments for graduate students in computational modeling techniques.
