CBE Seminar: Brad Olsen (MIT)

Description

Bio:
Brad Olsen is the Alexander and I. Michael Kasser (1960) Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He earned his S.B. in chemical engineering) from MIT in 2003. His undergraduate research with Prof. Karen Gleason focused on understanding the polymerization kinetics of initiated chemical vapor deposition reactions to produce fluorocarbon and organosiloxane polymer coatings for biopassivation and hydrophobic surfaces. He moved to Berkeley for his graduate work, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 2007.

After finishing his Ph.D., Prof. Olsen was an NIH and Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech. He applied protein biosynthesis to the design of physically associating telechelic protein hydrogels which were applied as injectable biomaterials. Joint theoretical and experimental investigations were used to gain insight into the properties and design rules governing these systems.

Olsen’s interest in polymer science has been longstanding, starting with a high school science fair project on conductive dendrimer films. His current research interests are broadly clustered in the areas of soft condensed matter physics and macromolecular physics, including liquid crystals, biomaterials, colloids, and polymers. He is particularly interested in how biosynthesis can be used as a natural green chemistry for the preparation of designer polymeric materials, how controlled polymerization through biology can give us unique materials that provide insight into polymer physics, and the unique physics of self-assembly in complex protein nanostructures for biotechnology and energy applications.