News
2024
- May 1st - Congrats to Ben on passing his Inorganic Chemistry qualifying exam!
- May 1st - Nick won second place in the poster competition at MIT Polymer Day, congrats!
- April 15th - Congrats to Carl and many of our lab alumni on their new JACS paper on tuning NCT interfaces with multivalent polymers!
- April - Congrats to Kevin on getting the NSF GRFP!
- March - The group took a new lab photo!
2023
- December - The group went skating to celebrate the end of the year! We definitely spent the whole time upright, definitely...
- December - Welcome back Amber, now as a post-doc!
- December - The group was awarded a DURIP to get a new TGA!
- November - The lab welcomes DMSE first years Katie, Steven, and Kevin to the group!
- November 3 - Congrats to Ted and our alum Diana on their new paper on controlling PAE nucleation and growth using templates in ACS Nano!
- October - The group had a pumpkin carving event to celebrate Halloween! It was featured in the MIT Daily!
- September - The Macfarlane Lab website gets a much-needed revamp. Thanks Nick! (It feels so awkward to write these in third person...)
- August 11 - Congrats to Xin and his collaborators in the Bathe lab on their new publication on 2D quantum dot/rod assemblies via DNA functionalization in Science Advances!
- August - The group went bowling for a summer outing!
- July - The group took a new lab photo
- July - Welcome visiting high school researcher Hayim!
- June 30 - Congrats to Ted, Xin, and Omar on their review of nanoparticle brushes for materials synthesis in Accounts of Chemical Research!
- June 13 - Griff graduated! Congrats Dr. Desroches! Off to Tesa
- June - Congrats to Omar on his MSc! Good luck with your future endeavors!
- May 22 - Congrats to Daryl and his collaborators in the Portela group on their publication on the tunable mechanical response of NCT superlattices in Nano Letters!
- May - Congrats to Pete on earning his BSc, good luck at UC Berkeley!
- March 10 - Congrats to Daryl and Margaret on their paper on phase transitions in NCT superlattices in JACS!
- March 6 - Congrats to Carl and the Hart group on their paper using interfacial polymerization to create polyetherimide films in Advanced Functional Materials!
- March - The group was announced as part of a cohort receiving the DoD's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) award. Congrats to all involved!
- February 14 - Congrats to Margaret, Daryl, Josh, and PJ on their publication on improving NCT superlattice stability with polymer gels in the Journal of Chemical Physics!
- February 8 - Congrats to Leo, Diana, and Ted on their paper on PAE self-assembly into micromirrors in ACS Nano!
- January - Welcome Amber Li, a visiting student from Nanyang Technological University!
2021
- December - The group held a holiday party to celebrate the end of the year
- October 27 - Congrats to Josh on his paper showing how polymer-grafted nanoparticles can form high filler content composites in Advanced Functional Materials!
- October - Welcome post-docs Xin (joint with the Bathe lab) and Ted to the lab!
- September 3 - Congrats to Rob on his perspective in Nano Letters: “From nano to macro: thinking bigger in nanoparticle assembly”!
- September - Welcome post-doc Rebecca to the group!
- August - DMSE graduate student Carl joins the group. Welcome!
- July 7 - Congrats to Fei, Josh, Michika, PJ, and Koki on their paper looking at brush polymers as nanoscale building blocks in Chemistry of Materials!
- June 20 - Congrats to Fei, Josh, Michika, and Yuping for their paper on quick setting non-swelling hydrogels using brush polymers in Advanced Science!
- April 28 - Margaret won runner-up at MIT's Polymer Day research poster competition. Congratulations!
- March 24 - PJ, Paul, Leo, and Margaret got a paper on macroscopic material assembly using nanoparticle superlattices published in Nature!
- March 1 - Josh, Amogh, Diana, and Sara published a paper on manipulating DNA-programmed crystals in a hydrogel in ACS Applied Interfaces!
- January - Omar, Matthew, and Keisuke have joined the group! Welcome!
2020
- December 14 - Congrats to Yuping and Griff for their perspective on ordered polymer composite materials in Nanoscale!
- October - Diana Lewis and Leonardo Zornberg's work on self-assembling winterbottom structures made it to the cover of MRSBulletin! Pyramid Power!
- September - Daryl Yee is officially a Macfarlanite. Welcome to the group!
- August - Congratulations to Professor Macfarlane for being selected as a 2020 JACS Young Investigator!
- March 20 - While our research is incredibly important, it has been deemed non-essential during the covid-19 pandemic, causing a temporary hiatus from regular lab work. The following changes are also in place:
- Annual handshake competition has been delayed
- Visit Weekend Kissing Booth has been rescheduled for a later visit weekend
- Josh and Margaret's trip to Argonne National Laboratory has been canceled
- The official communal office coffee mug will be washed
- Aggregation of time-sensitive metastable nanoparticles has been prohibited
- Lab members are encouraged to work from home, write papers, run simulations, and play Overcooked 2 to develop frantic time-management and multitasking skills
- March 16 - Diana (our favorite student alumni to date) and Leo (a current student) have published a paper on PAE crystals grown on surfaces in Nature Materials. You can never escape the Macfarlawesomenss!
- February 20 - Professor Macfarlane has defeated the AWOT process and been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor (without tenure)! He also managed to survive the confetti cannon celebration. Good news for all, especially his current students
- January 6 - PJ published a paper on magnetic bonds in NCTs in JACS
2019
- December 16 - The group celebrates some winter holidays, and finally discovers the mysteries of the Macfarlane Mansion
- October 11 - Leo and Paul published a paper on optically processing nanoparticle films in Nano Letters
- September 10 - PJ published a paper on controlling of molecular multivalency in nanoparticle assemblies (a.k.a. bundle bonds) in JACS
- August - Michika was awarded the JSPS Cross-border Postdoctoral Fellowship
- August 25 - Josh published a paper on crosslinkable polymer-grafted nanoparticles in Advanced Functional Materials
- July 29 - Yuping, PJ, Josh, and Margaret published a paper on multistimuli responsive nanocomposite tectons in JACS
- July 26 - PJ published a paper on assembly of ordered crystals with disperse building blocks in Nano Letters
- July 3 - Paul published a paper on controlling crystal texture of PAE thin films in ACS Nano
- June 6 - Diana graduated. Congratulations to the first Macfarlab graduate!
- May - Michika has joined the Macfarlane team
- May 22 - Josh presented a poster at the Cabot Student Materials Research Forum, winning 2nd place and a GoPro
- May 13 - Diana defended her thesis: Deposition, Crystallization and Nanoindentation of Substrate-Bound Biomolecule-Assembled Nanomaterials
- May 13 - Professor Rob Macfarlane has been chosen as the Paul M. Cook Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
- April 16 - Paul and Leo published a review article on the Programmable Atom Equivalents, and how atomic crystallization theory has influenced nanoparticle self-assembly
- March 20 - Margaret passed her Thesis Proposal and is officially admitted to her PhD Program
- Feb 13 - PJ presented at the ICS conference- and was awarded the Israel Chemical Society Excellent Poster Prize
- October -
2018
- December - Griffen joins the Macfarlab
- August 30 - Diana and Paul published a paper on Programmable Atom Equivalent deposition in Langmuir
- August 24 - Paul, Diana, and PJ presented at the Fall National ACS Meeting
- May 31 - The lab crushes Prof. Macfarlane at go-karts, definitively proving that studying nanoparticle self-assembly does not improve driver skill
- April - Josh and Leo pass their Thesis Area Exams/Proposals and are officially admitted to their PhD Programs!
- January 31 - Paul published a paper on lattice mismatch during epitaxial growth of PAE crystals
2017
- December 15 - The Macfarlane Lab celebrates the end of a successful 2017!
- November 17 - Margaret Lee joins the lab as a new graduate student - welcome!
- September 15 - Fei Jia joins the lab as a new post-doc!
- September 1 - Yuping Wang joins the lab as a new post-doc!
- July 15 - The Macfarlane lab says goodbye to Jianyuan Zhang and wishes him well as a new professor at Rutgers University
- June 1 - Sara Wilson & Megan Diehl join the lab for the summer as UROP students
- June 1 - Kimberly Stieglitz joins the lab for the summer as an RET fellow
- May 10 - Josh is awarded an NDSEG Graduate Fellowship - congrats, Josh!
- April 17 - Rob is awarded the Unilever Award for Outstanding Young Investigator in Colloid & Surfactant Science
- April 11 - The Macfarlane lab thoroughly destroys the Holten-Andersen lab at laser tag
- April 4 - Diana passes her Thesis Proposal Defense - Congratulations!
- March - Paul and PJ pass their Thesis Area Exams and are officially admitted to the PhD Program!
- March 17 - Both Paul and Leo are awarded NSF Graduate Fellowships! Congratulations!
- January 31 - Rob is awarded an NSF CAREER Award
2016
- December 20 - The Macfarlane group celebrates the end of a very productive 2016. Happy Holidays!
- December 7 - The group's first paper on Nanocomposite Tectons, titled: “Self-Assembling Nanocomposite Tectons,” is published in JACS!
- December 1 - Leonardo Zornberg joins the lab as a first year graduate student - welcome!
- November 23 - Paul's paper “Epitaxy: Programmable Atom Equivalents Versus Atoms” is published in ACS Nano! Congratulations to Paul and our collaborators at Northwestern!
- October 18 - Congratulations to Professor Macfarlane for being awarded an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Award for work on “DNA-Programmed Epitaxy of Nanoparticle Superlattices!”
- September 23 - Joshua Kubiak joins the lab as a first year graduate student - welcome!
- February 5 - Rob's paper “Transmutable nanoparticles with reconfigurable surface ligands” is published in Science. Congratulations to first author Youngeun Kim and collaborators in the Mirkin Lab at NU!
- February 4 - Diana Lewis joins the lab - welcome Diana!
2015
- October 15 - The Macfarlane lab welcomes PJ Santos, Sangho Lee, and Paul Gabrys as first year graduate students!
- September 15 - Jianyuan Zhang joins the lab as a new post-doc!
