Education

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University
• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin - Madison
• B.S., The University of Texas at Austin

Teaching and Research Interests

Materials chemistry, nanomaterials synthesis and characterization, nanoscience, nanoassembly, hybrid materials systems, bottom-up fabrication

Teaching Philosophy

Many societal challenges—sustainability, energy, and health care—can be addressed by innovations in science. We must develop, though effective teaching, future generations of scientists to meet these challenges. My approach to teaching science relies on three principles: (i) great teachers are also great students, (ii) effective mentors know their students, and (iii) science must be brought to life.

Current Research

Our research seeks to discover new methods to control (e.g., synthesize, assemble, manipulate, organize, etc.) hard materials with soft materials. These “soft” fabrication tools will enable new hybrid structures—those that combine hard inorganic and soft organic components—with dynamic properties (chemical, physical, and structural) that are useful to applications such as soft sensing and electronics. In these efforts, we emphasize systems with heterogeneous chemical, structural, and physical attributes that can be reversibly reconfigured using simple, macro-scale processes such as mechanical deformation. The micro-scale features (e.g., surface chemistry or structure) of these materials are readily organized and manipulated on length scales commensurate with their size, even when large numbers of objects are involved. Active projects include: (i) Mechano-chemical Surfaces, and (ii) Soft, Stretchable Reactors.

Figure 1

Selected Publications

(1) Bowen, J.J.; Taylor, J.M.; Jurich, C.P.; Morin, S.A. “Stretchable Chemical Patterns for the Assembly and Manipulation of Arrays of Micro-droplets with Lensing and Micro-mixing Functionality” Adv. Func. Mater. 2015, Accepted, DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201502174.

(2) Konda, A; Taylor, J.M.; Stoller, M.A.; Morin, S.A. “Reconfigurable Microfluidic Systems with Reversible Seals Compatible with 2D and 3D Surfaces of Arbitrary Chemical Composition” Lab Chip 2015, 15, 2009-2017.

(3) Morin, S.A.; Shepherd, R.F.; Kwok, S.W.; Stokes, A.A.; Nemiroski, A.; Whitesides, G.M. "Camouflage and Display for Soft Machines" Science 2012, 337, 828-832.

(4) Morin, S.A.; Forticaux, A.; Bierman, M.J.; Jin, S. "Screw Dislocation-Driven Growth of Two Dimensional Nanoplates" Nano Lett. 2011, 11, 4449-4455.

(5) Morin, S.A.; Bierman, M.J.; Tong, J.; Jin, S. "Mechanism and Kinetics of Spontaneous Nanotube Growth Driven by Screw Dislocations" Science 2010, 328, 476-480.