Matt Tirrell Presented
the 2003 Leland Lecture
Matt Tirrell presented the Ninth Leland lecture
at 4 PM on April 10, 2003 in McMurtry Auditorium. The title of
his talk was: "Chemical Processing by Self-Assembly."
 Matt
Tirrell received his undergraduate education in Chemical Engineering
at Northwestern University and his Ph.D. in 1977 in Polymer Science
from the University of Massachusetts. He is currently Dean of
the College of Engineering at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. From 1977 to 1999 he was on the faculty of Chemical
Engineering
and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, where he
served as head of the department from 1995 to 1999.
His research
has been in polymer surface properties including adsorption,
adhesion, surface treatment, friction, lubrication and biocompatibility.
He has co-authored about 250 papers and one book and has supervised
about 60 Ph.D. students. Professor Tirrell has been a Sloan
and a Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus
Teacher-Scholar Award and has received the Allan P. Colburn,
Charles
Stine and the Professional Progress Awards from AIChE. He was
elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997, be-came
a Fellow
of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers
in 1998, was elected Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement
of Science in 2000 and was named Institute Lecturer for the
American
Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2001. Richard A. Auhll Professor
and Dean of the College of EngineeringUniversity of California.
The endowed lectures honor the memory of Professor
Thomas Leland, a distinguished researcher and teacher who had been
a member of our department from the early 1950s until his death
in 1986.
THE T.W. LELAND, Jr. LECTURE
IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Matt Tirrell
Richard A. Auhll Professor and
Dean of the College of Engineering
University of California, Santa Barbara
"Chemical Processing by Self-Assembly"
Thursday, April 10, 2002
4:00 P.M.
McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall
Rice University
Visitors should use Entrance 12 from Rice Blvd. or Entrance 8
from University and park in the stadium lot. Shuttle service
from the parking lot to Duncan Hall runs every 15 minutes
For more information about this event,
please call Diana Thomas-Walker at (713) 348-4902.
ABSTRACT
Self-assembly is a route to processing of chemical
products that relies on information content built into the process
precursors. The bonding mechanisms of self-assembled products are
weaker than the electronic bonds of molecules; the complexity built
into self-assembled products is at the level of supermolecular
structure. Self-assembly processes may be spontaneous or directed
by the influence of templates or fields. Self-assembly occurs
frequently in biology, but translating that bioinspiration to controllable
chemical processing presents many interesting problems.
A challenge
for chemical engineers is to develop the practical routes to
technologically important self-assembly processes. Applications
will be to biomaterials,
porous materials, molecular electronics and many other areas.
Hurdles that must be overcome include the precision synthesis
of precursors,
mastering the kinetics and dynamics of such processes, scale-up,
and the characterization and control of self-assembly products
and processes. Prospects for success and cur-rent eff orts in
these areas will be discussed.
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