Whitney 福勒 研究 Group

The Molecular 工程 Lab

The Molecular 工程 Lab at Harvey Mudd College designs engineered systems at the molecular level to address emerging challenges in the water crisis and human health at a global scale. 要做到这一点, we apply engineering design principles to highly tunable molecules in such a way that we can (1) control how these molecules self-assemble into larger structures and (2) design-in functions to these macro-molecular assemblies that would not be possible for the individual molecules to do themselves.

Just like how structural engineers strategically select individual materials and components to design an assembled large-scale structure with emergent properties, we as a society now have the technology to understand and manipulate building blocks at the molecular scale to engineer macro-scale structures that can perform amazing functions. Our lab is fascinated by the possibilities in this space!

We harness the amazing functions of natural biological molecules and incorporate them into bio-inspired synthetic materials. We are currently designing biomimetic supramolecular assemblies that are intrinsically fluorescent, which is a new property that we discovered in a highly studied and tunable system called peptide amphiphile nanofibers. We seek to (1) tune the molecular design to enhance the fluorescence signal, which then positions us to (2) design in fluorescent stimuli-responsive sensing mechanisms, which has intriguing applications in biosensing, bioimaging, and detecting emerging contaminants in water.

教授. 福勒’s goal for her students is that they would become graduate-level researchers who work independently and train up new lab members out of their newly developed areas of expertise. Through personalized mentorship with 教授. 福勒, students are able to gain all the skills required to complete a research project, from performing a thorough literature review and developing their own research questions, to disseminating their research in clearly articulated publications and oral presentations. 教授. 福勒 deeply cares about creating an inclusive space in which failure is expected and all feel comfortable growing and contributing, with the goal that this lab space could be a training ground for students from all backgrounds and experience-levels to excel in these skills and advance good in our world.

太阳2注册平台 the Principle Investigator

教授essor Whitney 福勒 received her Bachelors of 工程 in Chemical and Biomolecular 工程 from Vanderbilt University and her Ph.D. in Molecular 工程 at the University of Chicago with a research emphasis on Materials Systems for Sustainability and Health. As an Assistant 教授essor of 工程 at Harvey Mudd College, she has loved interacting with Mudders and teaching courses such as E138 Introduction to Environmental 工程 and E4 Introduction to 工程 Design and Manufacturing.