The American Chemical Society Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) has selected a new class of PMSE Fellows for 2020. The following distinguished PMSE members have been chosen
Vivek Prabhu, Shanti Swarup, Tao Xie, and Ting Xu
They will be inducted as the twentieth class of PMSE Fellows at the Philadelphia ACS Meeting during the joint PMSE/POLY Awards Reception on Wednesday evening, March 25th, 2020. PMSE is pleased to welcome this distinguished group of polymer scientists and engineers to the ranks of fellows. Here is a short description of each of their careers and accomplishments:
Vivek M. Prabhu – National Institute of Standards and Technology
“For developing measurements that identify the resolution limit of the chemically amplified photoresists that are used in semiconductor lithography and working with industry develop strategies rooted in the fundamentals of polymer physics to improve this resolution and drive semiconductor scaling.”
Dr. Vivek M. Prabhu is currently leader of the Polyelectrolyte Solutions and Gels project and acting group leader of the Polymers and Complex Fluids group in the Materials Science and Engineering Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He received his Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2001, advised by Prof. M. Muthukumar, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & S.U. in 1996. After completing a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship in the NIST Polymers Division, advised by Dr. Wen-li Wu, he led the Polymers for Next Generation Lithography project from 2003 to 2010 and worked with Semiconductor industry leaders, Universities, and National Laboratories to understand and improve the resolution of deep-ultraviolet and extreme-ultraviolet photoresist polymers and molecular resist thin films. His current research focuses on structure, self-assembly and phase diagrams of polymers and polyelectrolytes as applied to advanced materials, drug delivery, nanoparticle health and safety, and therapeutics. He specializes in the application and advancement of characterization methods including laser light, X-ray, and neutron scattering and reflectivity for polymer research. Many of these current efforts are supported by the NIST Materials Genome Initiative to develop unique experimental data that validate modern theories and simulations. Dr. Prabhu’s research contributions were recognized by several prestigious awards. He was a co-recipient of the 2019 ACS Award for Innovation and 2007 NIST Slichter Award and received the 2010 NIST Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award. He has served as member and chair of the User Executive Committee for the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, member of NIST Center for Neutron Research Beamtime Allocation Committee and Program Advisory Committee Member of the SPIE Microlithography Conference. More information can be found at https://www.nist.gov/people/vivek-prabhu
Shanti Swarup – PPG
Dr. Swarup, Associate Fellow, joined PPG in 1988 as a chemist at the Coating Innovation Center in Allison Park, PA, after completing his Ph.D. from Aligarh Muslim University (India), and Postdoctoral Fellowships from Lund, and Uppsala University (Sweden), and Rutgers University (U.S.). During his 31 yr. tenure as a polymer scientist at PPG, he and his team have developed and scaled-up 220 unique polymers. 25% of these polymers are used in commercial products, producing > $9 billion in cumulative sales for PPG. He is named inventor on 550 global patents and publications including 84 granted U.S. Patents and over 25 pending review in the U.S. patent review office.
Tao Xie – Zhejiang University
Dr. Tao Xie is currently Qiushi chair professor at the College of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University. He obtained his BS and MS degrees in Polymer Chemistry from Zhejiang University in 1993 and 1996, respectively. From University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he received his PhD in Polymer Science & Engineering in 2001. He had since worked at the General Motors Global Research Lab and HRL Laboratories before taking his current post in 2013. His research interests include dynamic covalent polymer networks, shape memory polymers, and 3D/4D printing. He is the inventor of over 80 patents. His is the recipient of the following awards: 2001 Omnova Solution award, 2011 Innovations that could change the way you manufacture from Society of Manufacturing Engineering, 2011 Campbell award, 2013 R&D 100 award, and 2019 Wang Baoren Award from Chinese Chemical Society. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. More information can be found at http://sklpre.zju.edu.cn/ktxzen/redir.php?catalog_id=16772&object_id=17151.
Ting Xu – University of California, Berkeley
Prof. Ting Xu received her Ph.D from the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2004. She did her postdoctoral training jointly between the University of Pennsylvania and the Cold Neutron for Biology and Technology (CNBT) team at National Institute of Science and Technology from 2004-2006. She jointed University of California, Berkeley in both the Department of Material Sciences and Engineering and Department of Chemistry in January 2007. She was promoted to Associated professor with tenure in July 2012.
Prof. Xu’s research interests rest at the interface among chemistry, soft matter, biology and material engineering. Her research efforts focus on understanding assembly process in multi-component systems and applying the fundamental knowledge to control the assembly kinetics and pathways to generate hierarchically structured nanomaterials with built-in functionalities. Researchers in Xu’s group take advantage of the recent developments in polymer science, protein science, synthetic biology, and nanoparticles synthesis and manipulation, and apply them to establish chemistry-structure-property relationship and generate nanostructured functional materials for life science, environment and energy applications.
Prof. Xu has over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, 5 book chapters and several patents. She is the recipient of several awards including 2007 DuPont Science and Technology Grant; 2008 3M Nontenured Faculty Award; 2008 DuPont Young Professor Award; 2009 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award; 2010 Li Ka Shing Woman Research Award; 2010 NASA Patent Award; 2011 Camille-Dreyfus Scholar-Teacher Award; 2011 ACS Arthur K. Doolittle Award and 2018 Bakar Fellow. She was named as one of “Brilliant 10” by Popular Science Magazine in 2009. She is a fellow of American Physical Society and serves on the Board of Directors of Materials Research Society.