1. -Ruhao’s new paper on PIL-b-PMMA-grafted particles and their polarization got published at ACS Applied Polymer Materials. Congrats to Ruhao!
   

1. -Chris and Ruhao presented their papers at 2025 APS March Meeting in Anaheim, CA.
   

- Chris and Ruhao received Stevens Conference travel grant, 2025.

1. -Emilia Lopes joins our group in Spring 2025.
   

1. -Yea (Esther) Chai will join our group this June for research. We warmly welcome, Yea!
   

1. -Ruhao Li is selected for the Stevens Excellence Doctoral Fellowship, 2024-2025.
   

1. -Yi Feng received an Exxon Mobil Award for outstanding doctoral research in Chemical Engineering, 2024.
   

1. -Yi Feng successfully defended his PhD dissertation on April 24, 2024. Congratulations to Yi!!!
   

1. -Ruhao’s paper on PIL-grafted nanoparticle assembly for ion conduction got published in Macromolecules. Congratulations to Ruhao!
   

1. -Chris, Ruhao and Yi presented their papers at 2024 APS March Meeting in Minneapolis, MN.
   

1. -Yi Feng’s paper is appeared on the cover page of Macromolecular Rapid Communications, 45(5), 2300620, 2024.
   

-Kyle Shultz, Master student in Materials Science and Enginering joins our group in Spring’24. Welcome, Kyle!

1. -Yi Feng’s paper is published at Macromolecular Rapid Communications, December 22, 2023.
   

1. -2023 REU/RET program is featured on Stevens website.
   

1. -Yang Ge’s paper is published at ACS Applied Enginering Materials, September 21, 2023.
   

1. -Presented our REU/RET Program poster at the ASEE Conference in Baltimore, MD, June 28, 2023.
   

1. -Deniz Bulucu from Brandeis University joins our group as REU student.
   

- Stevens 2023 REU/RET program started on June 5.

1. -Ruhao Li, Yi Feng gave oral presentations at 2023 APS March Meeting on their recent works.
   

1. -Ruhao and Yi received the Stevens Graduate Students travel award to attend APS-2023 in Las Vegas.
   

1. -2023 Stevens REU/RET Program is now accepting applications.   www.stevens.edu/reu-ret
   

1. -2022 REU/RET Program is ended with a very successful Research Symposium, August 5, 2022.
   

https://www.stevens.edu/news/reu-ret-2022-recap

1. -Dr. Di Wu started working as a post-doc at UC-Merced, August 2022.
   

1. -The 17th Northeast Complex Fluids and Soft Matter Workshop organized at Stevens on June 24, 2022.
   

https://www.stevens.edu/NCS17

- Seena Seon from The Cooper Union joins our group, May 31, 2022.

1. -2022 REU/RET Program starts on May 31, 2022. We have 8 REUs and 4 RETs this year in our program.
   

1. -The Senior Design Group advised by P. Akcora received the Best Experiment Based Chemical Engineering Senior Design Award. Students: Elizabeth Kate Banat, Guilherme Portugal Vasconcelos Barboza, Nisha N. Patel, Spring’22.
   

1. -Di Wu received the Morton M. Traum award for PhD in Materials Science.
   

1. -Di defended his PhD thesis successfully on April 28, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Wu!!!
   

1. -Di Wu, Yi Feng, Ruhao Li and Yang Ge presented their oral talks in 2022 APS March Meeting in Chicago.
   

1. -Pinar gave an invited talk in the APS DPOLY Polymer Physics Prize Session, “Dynamics and Solvation of Ionic Liquids with Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles, Chicago, March 15, 2022.
   

1. -2022 Summer REU/RET website is now open.
   

Please check our website for more information to apply: http://stevens.edu/reu-ret

1. -An article on our NSF REU/RET site is published. December 6, 2021.
   

https://www.stevens.edu/news/stevens-program-offers-students-and-teachers-research-experiences-mapping-brain-studying-polymers

1. -REU/RET Program started on June 7, 2021. Welcome REUs to virtual Stevens. We are all excited to working with you!
   

   REUs: Kayla Eng, Madison Grigg, Andrew Sayad, Aleco Pavlou, Mika Naseef and Alexa Babick

   RETs: Ikechukwu Onyema and Jamie Kubiak started the RET Program, July 6, 2021.

Welcome Ike & Jamie!!

- Welcome Yuke Han to our group, September 2021!

1. -Ruhao Li and Yang Ge passed their PhD oral qualifying exams (05/2021). Congrats!!
   

- A new graduate student, Yuke Han, is joining our group in August, 2021!

1. -New RA positions are available. Please Contact Prof. Akcora for more information.
   

1. -Check out our new REU/RET program website. stevens.edu/reu-ret
   

Application Deadline: April 15, 2021.

1. -Akcora received a new NSF grant from DMR Polymers. 03/09/2021. $424,000. The title of the project is “Directed Ionic Transport in Poly(Ionic Liquid)-Grafted Nanoparticles in Polarizable Media”. Very excited to work on this project!!!
   

- DPOLY Program Book March Meeting’21 is now online.

1. -We received the NSF REU/RET Site grant!!! 02/25/2021. The title of the program is “Interdisciplinary Research Experience in Sustainable Energy and Bioengineering”. $375,000. The program starts on June 1st.
   

1. -Christopher Mbonu joins the group on 01/29/2021. Welcome Christopher!!!
   

1. -Yi Feng passed the PhD oral qualifier exam, December 10, 2020. Congratulations to Yi!
   

1. -Our Nanoscale Educators Workshop is on local news!! https://www.tapinto.net/towns/morristown/sections/education/articles/morristown-high-school-teacher-facilitates-nanoscience-educators-workshop-2020
   

1. -Siqi Liu defended her PhD successfully on August 18, 2020! Congratulations Dr. Liu!!!
   

1. -We are organizing the virtual Nanoscience Educator Workshop with Mariel Kolker, physics teacher from Morristown High School-NJ, and Rahmi Ozisik from RPI-NY, on August 3-7, 2020. Register to attend by Zoom.
   

1. -Pinar is the Division of Polymer Physics (DPOLY) Program Chair of APS March Meeting’21, March 15-19, 2021.
   

The DPOLY Program is ready with 8 Invited Symposia, 48 Focus Sessions, and the Short Course!

- Pinar joins the APS Task Force on Poster Session for planning March Meetings.

- We received $60,986 Supplemental funding for our collaborative work with RPI (Rahmi Ozisik & Ravishankar Sundararaman) from NSF-CMMI for the call on “Data Science Activities for CMMI communities”. The title of the project is “Machine Learning for Polymer Nanocomposites using Force-Field Agnostic Molecular Dynamics Descriptors”.

- Siqi’s paper on “Polymer-Coupled Local Dynamics Enhances Conductivity of Ionic Liquids” got accepted to Macromolecules. Congratulations!

1. -Siqi’s paper on ” “Solvation in Ionic Liquids with Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles” got accepted to J.Phys.Chem B.!
   

1. -Guilherme Barboza joins us to conduct research for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) research program for Summer’20.
   

1. -New graduate student Yang Ge joins our group Summer’20. Welcome Yang!
   

1. -New Ph.D. student Christopher Mbonu will join Akcora’s group starting Fall’20.
   

1. -Siqi receives the ExxonMobil Award for Outstanding PhD student in Chemical Engineering, 2019-2020. Congratulations!
   

- Siqi received the $1,250 conference funding support from Stevens.

1. -Akcora is the Division of Polymer Physics (DPOLY) Program Chair of APS March Meeting’21, Nashville, TN, March 15-19, 2021.
   

- Siqi Liu passed the pre-defense presentation on February 20, 2020.

- Check out the news about our group: https://www.stevens.edu/news/living-polymer-material-world

- Ruhao Li joins our group. Welcome !

1. -Siyang Yang received his PhD, August 1, 2019. Congrats to Dr. Yang!
   

1. -New PhD student, Yi Feng, joins the group! August 5, 2019.
   

1. -Vicky’s paper got accepted for publication at Nanoscale!
   

1. -Siqi Liu received the Stevens Excellence Doctoral Fellowship, Fall’19 - Spring’20.
   

1. -Mia and Hailey start summer research in our lab on June 1, 2019.
   

- Di Wu passed the oral qualifier exam, May 10, 2019.

1. -Siyang received the Whitney Graduate Assistanship, $4,000 from SPE-Palisades, NJ, May 2019.
   

1. -Chongfeng defended his PhD Thesis on May 2, 2019. Congrats to Dr. Zhang!
   

1. -Pinar received the SPRINT grant ($10,000) from Stevens, April 1, 2019.
   

1. -Akcora received a new grant from the NSF-CMMI-MEP program on the project titled “Chemical and Dynamic Heterogeneities in Interfaces for Adaptive Polymer Nanocomposites”. Project start date: September 15, 2018.
   

1. -New PhD student, Di Wu, joins our group, Fall‘2018.
   

1. -Chongfeng Zhang received the I&E Doctoral fellowship for AY18-19, August 2018. Congratulations to Chongfeng!!
   

1. -Zeryn Tamton and Hailey Tanner joined the group, June 1, 2018.
   

- Mohammed Hassan received  the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, Master of Engineering in Materials Science, May 2018.

1. -Akcora received a new grant from the NSF-DMR-Polymers program on the project entitled “Ionic Transport in Ion Containing Copolymer-Grafted Nanoparticle Structures”. Project starts on June 1, 2018.
   

1. -Pinar was on Sabbatical at Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Germany in Spring’18.
   

1. -Dr. Erkan Senses started working as an assistant professor at Koc University, Istanbul-Turkey!
   

1. -Chongfeng’s new paper on ordering polyelectrolyte-grafted nanoparticles is accepted by Advanced Materials Interfaces.
   

1. -Haoyu started his post-doc in Prof. Chen’s group at NYU, August 2017.
   

1. -Haoyu’s new paper on protein structures at polyzwitterion interfaces got accepted to Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces.
   

1. -TJ receives the CHI Healthcare Scholars award for 2017-18.
   

1. -TJ Carlson joins our group.
   

1. - Mohammed Hassan joins our group, May 2017.
   

1. -Pinar joins the Israel Faculty Fellowship program June 1-12, 2017.
   

1. -Haoyu Wang defended his Ph.D. thesis on May 4, 2017. Congratulations Dr. Wang!!!
   

1. -Nanoscience Teachers Workshop is on its second year. This year it will be held at RPI on June 26-28 in Troy, Albany. Register at http://tinyurl.com/RPInano2017.
   

1. -Chongfeng’s paper on evaporation controlled particle assemblies in polymer is published in RSC Advances, 2017.
   

1. -Group members (Vicky, Chongfeng, Haoyu and Siyang) have presented at the APS March Meeting’17 in New Orleans, LA.
   

1. -Haoyu received Stevens Ph.D. Conference funding.
   

1. -Haoyu’s new paper ‘Confinement Effect on Structure and Elasticity of Proteins Interfacing Polymers’ is accepted for publication in Soft Matter, Jan 10, 2017!
   

1. -NanoScience Workshop for high school teachers was organized on July 13-15, 2016 at Stevens.
   

1. -Siyang and Chongfeng presented at the 12th National Graduate Research Polymer Conference at the University of Akron, OH, June 19-22.
   

- A new REU student, Yesenia Castelan from Union College joined our group. June 13, 2016.

1. -Mia Walton and Kaitlyn Zak joined our group. June 1, 2016. Welcome!
   

1. -Haoyu is awarded the Whitney Graduate Scholarship of $4,000. Congrats to Haoyu! June 2016.
   

1. -Chongfeng and Siyang passed the Ph.D. oral qualification exams. Congrats to Chongfeng and Siyang!!!
   

1. - Akcora is tenured at Stevens! March 14, 2016.
   

1. - Akcora organized the 2016 APS DPOLY Short Course on “Polymer Nanocomposites: Challenges and Opportunities” with Russell Composto (U Pennsylvania) and Rohan Hule (ExxonMobil) in Baltimore, MD.
   

1. - Haoyu and Siqi presented at the APS and Chongfeng presented at the ACS National Conferences in March 2016.
   

- Siqi, Haoyu and Chongfeng presented at the Stevens Graduate Student Conference on February 20, 2016 and they all received travel awards for the APS /ACS National Conferences.

1. - Haoyu’s paper is accepted to Langmuir, “Elastic properties of protein functionalized nanoporous polymer films”, December, 2015.
   

1. - Siqi Liu passes the Ph.D. oral qualifier exam, December 2015. Congratulations to Siqi!
   

1. - A new Ph.D. student, Siyang Yang, joins our group on September 1, 2015. Welcome Siyang!
   

1. - Akcora received a new NSF grant from CMMI Materials Engineering & Processing (MEP) program, August 2015 on project titled “Unusual temperature dependent behavior of polymer nanocomposites”.
   

1. -Our paper on “Design of Ion-Containing Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles for Conductive Membranes” is accepted for publication in Macromolecules, DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.5b00758.
   

1. -Our paper on “Reversible Thermal Stiffening in Polymer Nanocomposites” is accepted to ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, DOI: 10/1021/acsami.5b02046.
   

1. -Undergraduate researcher, Brian Minevich, joins our group, June 1, 2015
   

1. -Erkan received the Whitney Scholarship from NJ-Palisades Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) for his work on polymer nanocomposites, May 29, 2015.
   

1. -Erkan starts working as a post-doctoral researcher at NCNR-NIST, August 15, 2015.
   

1. -Erkan has successfully defended his PhD thesis on May 4, 2015. Congratulations to Dr. Senses!!!
   

1. -Yang Jiao started working as a post-doctoral researcher at Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), April 20, 2015.
   

1. -Yang Jiao received the Exxon Mobil Research award for her PhD work. April 20, 2015.
   

1. -Erkan, Haoyu and Yang presented their papers in APS, 2015, San Antonio, TX.
   

1. -XPCS experiments at the APS-Argonne National Lab completed. Feb 12-17, 2015.
   

1. -A new PhD student, Chongfeng Zhang from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, joined our group in January’15. Welcome Chongfeng to our group!
   

1. -Yang defended her PhD thesis on Nov 13, 2014. Congratulations to Dr. Jiao!!!!!
   

1. -Erkan’s paper on “Tuning Mechanical Properties of Nanocomposites with Bimodal Polymer Bound Layers” is accepted to RSC Advances, Sept 2014.
   

1. -Yang Jiao’s paper on “Understanding the role of grafted polystyrene chain conformation on assembly of magnetic nanoparticles” is accepted to Physical Review E, Sept 2014.
   

1. -Akcora received ACS-PRF New Directions grant in May 2014.
   

1. -May 2, 2014 We received our first beam-time at Neutron Spin Echo at NCNR-NIST.
   

1. -Group website !!!
   

1. -Siqi Liu (from Beijing Chemical Sciences and Technology)  joined our group as a new PhD student - Fall 2014
   

- Erkan Senses and Yang Jiao presented their project results at 2014 APS National Meeting - Denver, CO.

- Akcora received the Stevens Institute of Technology Research Recognition Award, October 2010.

- Akcora received NSF-CAREER (DMR-Polymer) Award in 2010.

- Akcora received MU Research Board Grant in 2009.

Invited Talks:

April 8, 2025, Oklahoma State University, Chemical Engineering

March 17, 2025, APS March Meeting, Anaheim, CA, Invited Session: Structure and Properties of Ionic Polymer Solutions and Electrolytes.

June 6, 2024, ACS MARM, PMSE, Advancing and Designing Polymer Materials through Chemistry and Engineering Symposium, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

December 3-7, 2023, The 18th Pacific Polymer Conference 2023 (PPC18), Puello Vallarta, Mexico.

December 1, 2023, Rutgers University-Newark, Department of Chemistry.

September 27, 2023. University of Maryland-College Park, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, “Chain Dynamics and Mechanical Properties of Polymer Nanocomposites with Complex Interphases”.

April 24, 2023. Queens College, CUNY, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

April 12, 2023. Stockholm University, Sweden, “Ionic liquids, Polymers and their Composites”.

March 29, 2023. Seton Hall University Physics Colloquium, NJ.

December 8, 2022. University of Rhode Island, Department of Chemical Engineering.

September 30, 2022. University of Massachusetts-Amherst, PSE Colloquium.

September 21-22, 2022. ORNL Soft Matter Dynamics Workshop, Knoxville, TN.

April 27, 2022. Virginia Tech, Macromolecules Innovation Institute, “Adaptive Polymer Nanocomposites by Interfacial Design: Chemical and Dynamic Heterogeneities in Interfacial Layers”.

March 15, 2022, APS DPOLY Polymer Physics Prize Session, “Dynamics and Solvation of Ionic Liquids with Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles, Chicago.

February 8, 2021, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering.

October 29, 2020, Michigan State University, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science.

September 24, 2020, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

February 12, 2020, RPI, Materials Science and Engineering.

Pinar attended the Gordon Research Conference on Colloidal, Macromolecular and Polyelectrolyte Solutions on February 2-7, 2020, Ventura, CA.

April 26, 2019, SIT, CEMS Department Seminar.

April 4, 2019, Clemson University, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

March 6, 2019, APS March Meeting, Boston, Invited speaker in Focus Session on Polymer Nanocomposites.

November 1, 2018, AIChE Meeting, Pittsburgh, Session “Mechanics, Structure and Properties in Polymers”.

October 9, 2018, Tennessee Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering.

October 4, 2018, CUNY-Staten Island, Department of Chemistry.

March 8 & May 8, 2018, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany.

November 10, 2017, Syracuse University, Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering.

April 28, 2017, Case Western Reserve University, Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering.

Jan 13, 2017 Stevens Institute of Technology, NCS6 Northeast Complex Fluids and Soft Matter Workshop.

April 25, 2016 Texas A&M University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

March 23, 2016 Ohio University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

December 9-13, 2015, Pacific Polymer Conference 14, ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry, Kauai, Hawaii

April 16, 2015 University of Tennessee - Knoxville, Chemical Engineering

November 3, 2014 City College of New York, Chemical Engineering

December 2, 2014  Rutgers University, Materials Science and Engineering

July 30, 2014  Oak Ridge National Laboratory, SANS and NSE for Structure and Dynamics of Soft Matter Workshop

April 8, 2014  Department of Chemistry, New York University, Nanodiscussion group seminars, “Polymer decorated magnetic nanoparticles: From equilibrium to non-equilibrium assemblies”

January 16, 2014  NJ-Palisades Society of Plastics Engineering (SPE) Meeting

November 8, 2013  Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar, Brookhaven National Laboratory, “Multi-functional Particle Assemblies in Polymer Nanocomposites”

Gordon Research Conference (GRC), Colloidal, Macromolecular & Polyelectrolyte Solutions, poster presentation on “On the assembly of ion-containing polymer grafted nanoparticles”, February 16-21, 2014