The National Science Foundation Office of Integrative Activities awarded $199,363 to the University of Southern Mississippi on January 15, 2027, under the EPSCOR Research Fellows program (CFDA 47.083) to support automated discovery of controlled radical polymerization approaches for olefin-containing copolymers.
The University of Southern Mississippi's team, led by an assistant professor and a graduate student, will develop synthetic strategies for creating copolymers combining olefins and standard polar vinyl monomers with controllable size, shape, and olefin incorporation. The project leverages robotic chemistry platforms to screen synthetic conditions for high olefin incorporation, with the goal of producing copolymers exhibiting exceptional mechanical and adhesive properties. Work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Craig Hawker at the University of California Santa Barbara. The research infrastructure improvement project incorporates principles of automated experimentation into the principal investigator's teaching and outreach activities to disseminate high-throughput experimentation knowledge across Mississippi.
The award runs through December 31, 2028, with place of performance in Santa Barbara, California.