Professor Chan's group is interested in the synthesis and design of polymers for applications in sustainable materials, separations, and soft robotics. The primary focus of the lab is to develop synthetic and processing approaches for harnessing molecular level self-assembly in polymeric materials, and developing structure-property relationships. We are particularly interested in biopolymer-based materials, block polymers, and stimuli-responsive materials.
Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering
Daphne Wui Yarn Chan is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Chan's research interests center around designing polymers to address global sustainability challenges. She earned her BS in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2013 and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2019. Under the supervision of Bradley Olsen at MIT, she developed strategies for designing engineering plastics from renewable protein feedstock and approaches for recycling waste tire rubber. From 2019 to 2022, she served as a postdoc with Marc Hillmyer at the University of Minnesota, where her research focused on self-assembled block polymers and their applications in ultrafiltration membranes.
Chan has earned several awards recognizing her research contributions, including the University of Minnesota's President's Postdoctoral Fellowship and the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design Fellowship.
Plastics and polymers are indispensable in providing convenience, comfort, and safety to our everyday lives. However, our ever-growing need for plastics and the produce-use-discard model are taking a heavy environmental toll. Our research focuses on biopolymers, primarily proteins, as replacement for conventional polymers and fillers in materials. Proteins are renewable and produced in large volumes as agricultural side products. We will address the main challenges that limit the potential of protein-based plastics and develop strategies to address mechanical performance gaps, expand the scope of protein reaction chemistries and processing methods, and design materials that are biodegradable.
Figure adapted from https://link.springer.
Our research leverages dynamic covalent chemistry and stimuli-responsive materials to modulate properties of soft materials. Specific applications include imparting processability to crosslinked elastomers and developing novel materials for haptic displays.
Block polymers have great potential in broad nanotechnology applications due to their uniform and hierarchical nanostructures. We envision broadening the landscape of block polymers and the set of accessible morphologies by combining processing techniques with kinetic trapping or crosslinking. Potential applications for these materials include ultrafiltration membranes and affinity-based separations.
Figure adapted from https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsapm.2c00065
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Undergraduate
Want to join our team? We are looking for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows just like you! If you have questions, please send an introductory email with a description of interest and a resume/CV to Professor Chan.
Graduate students: All graduate students (MS or Ph.D.) will only be considered through the official CMU application system. Please apply online. If you are an admitted graduate student and would like to learn about available projects, please email Professor Chan.
▲ Back to the topChemE student Abigail Umscheid was awarded Best Undergraduate Poster at the Out in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (oSTEM) national conference. Umscheid, who works with ChemE's Daphne Chan, presented "Proteins as Renewable and Biodegradable Fillers in Polymer Composites."
