The Center for Advanced Study has appointed seven new members to its permanent faculty, including two MRL researchers, Jeffrey S. Moore and Nancy Sottos. CAS professors are selected based on their outstanding scholarship, and the appointments are one of the highest forms of campus recognition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Moore is the director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His lab is studying the intersection between chemistry and mechanics, testing the “mechanophore hypothesis,” which states that force drives chemical change in selective and productive ways. The goal is to invent materials that have new functionality, such as the ability to repair themselves when damaged. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has published more than 400 articles covering topics from technology in the classroom to self-healing polymers, mechanoresponsive materials and shape-persistent macrocycles.
Sottos is the department head and Swanlund Chair of materials science and engineering and leads the Autonomous Materials Systems group at the Beckman Institute. Her research involves the study of the mechanics of complex, heterogeneous materials such as self-healing polymers and advanced composites; mechanochemically active polymers; and novel materials designed for reliable energy storage. She is a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science and the Society for Experimental Mechanics, and she’s been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.