Meet the Team
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Team Members
Brian Love
Professor and PI
Brian joined Michigan in 2008 as a Professor in Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. Previously he had taught t Virginia Tech rising through the ranks from 1993-2007. He has his Ph.D. in Applied Science from Southern Methodist University in 1990 and was awarded a NIH Training Post-doctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech in Atlanta following that.  He has published 85+ journal articles and 2 books curing his career including a Biomaterials textbook.  He has commonly taught our polymers and biomaterials courses, and has been part of a team involved in biomedical design.  He was a Golden Apple award nominee for inspired teaching at Michigan in 2019.
Tololupe Lawal (2021-present)
Tololupe (Tolu) graduated with her BS in Materials Science and Engineering at THE Ohio State University in 2021. She is working on fiber extractions from Corn stover as part of a larger HARvEST program effort. She is supporting our efforts on microplastics doing targeted efforts to capture surface bound microplastics and has one paper submitted as 1st author.
Gradaute Ph.D. Candidate
Erin Clingerman
Undergraduate Researcher, 2023-present
Erin is focused on characterizing the isolation of both small molecules and cellulose from high waste fruit residues such as pumpkin and pineapple. We hope to compile the results and compare with other fruit residues and cotton we have already characterized.
Priya Patel, Undergraduate Researcher 2023-present
Priya is doing the preparatory work to produce samples to analyze microplastic capture on buoyant surfaces
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Sharon started working with the lab in the summer of 2024 on efforts to sequester combinations of drugs in amphiphilic copolymers as injectable therapies. She is contuing on with a similar vein looking into modulating both infection and pain in other procedures
Sharon Song
Undergraduate Researcher. SURE Fellow
Zhaokun (Brandon) Zhang, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow. 2002-present
Brandon is working to develop next generation non-woven from a machine design perspective. new dies, new processing modalities, new schemes to develop better filters and capture devices for a range of airborne targets.
Undergrduate researcher
Alum: Julie Rieland (2019-2023)
Ph.D. Graduate
Julie is a 2019 graduate of Michigan's MSE Department and is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program also at Michigan. Julie worked on two projects, one linked with microplastics capture and the other on the use of ionic liquids to extract and reprocess cellulose for reuse. She was able to publish 5 papers from the work she was able to accomplish.
Undergraduate Researcher
Zoe is an undergraduate (MSE) researcher who is working to support our NSF grant on microplastics capture. Her contribution is focused on developing tools and standards to objectively evaluate capture effectiveness. She published 2 articles from her work and has joined the Ph.D. program at Northwestern University in the fall of 2024.
Alum: Amanda Diddams 2022-2023
Undergraduate researcher
Amanda worked on oil water separation as a means for collecting microplastic particles. The hope is to gauge whether this is a scheme that could be leveraged for polyolefins of relatively low density.
Alum: Zoe Hu (2021-2024)
Jacob has been miniaturizing process tools using ardunio based programmable controllers. He won a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship to develop a miniaturized spinning take up wheel and is working on miniaturized extrusion. He published an article on this in the J Chem Ed. He's now working at LeMond Bicycles
Undergraduate Researcher
Alum:Â Jacob Dean
Robert (Bobby) is a 4th year undergraduate (ChE) working on breakdown of elastomers through high concentration exposures of chloramines at elevated temperature. The hope is to produce resins with enough unsaturation to be able to be reused. He'll be with us next year as a MS student
Undergraduate Researcher
Alum:Â Robert Stewart
Keon's focused on identifying micro plastics that have been retrieved from necropsies and other live extractions from aquatic mammals. we are developing a database of commonly observed microplastic particles. He was able to publish a paper tied to this work in the journal Microplastics
Undergraduate researcher 2020-2021
Alum: Keon Beigzadeh
Lydia is a Chemistry graduate from Xasvier University of Louisiana in New Orleans graduated with her Ph.D. in 2021 She worked on controlled release systems for localized antibiotic delivery using amphiphilic copolymers.  We have been probing the ability of gentamicin and vancomycin to release from colloidal crystals that self assemble above body temperature following liquid dispersion injection. She is now working at McKinsey in Chicago
Ph.D. Graduate, 2016-2021
Alum: Lydia Mensah
Rishabh worked with our group following the completion of his MS Degree at Michigan on an IPT assignment. Â He was working to develop swelling expandable tube structures based on acrylamide chemistry.
Post MS researcher
Alum:RIshabh Tennakore-2019-2020
Alum- Srivatsan Raghavan 2018-2020
MS Graduate researcher
Sriva was a part of our diaper dehydration team, working on liquid phase extraction of the liquid found in saturated superabsorbant polymers. Since graduating with his MS Degree, Sriva has been working at Bean Therapeutics in Boston
Alum- Alexandra Pine 2018-2020
Undergraduate Researcher
Cheng Chi worked on our diaper dehydration effort which included building and adapting the liquid phase dimethyl liquid phase extraction system. Â Cheng Chi graduated in 2019 and is working at Intel
Alexa worked on our diaper dehydration project and developed experiments to gauge drying efficiency in superabsorbant polymers by centrifugation.  Since graduating, Alexndra has been working at the Plug and Pack Tech Center, a venture capital firm based on the west coast but she is working locally.
Alum- Andre Thompson 2013-2018
Ph.D. graduate
Andre worked on drug infused amphiphilic copolymers with the notion of controlled release of chemotherapeutics. Â He was sponsored by both the National physical Sciences Consortium and GEM fellowships. Since graduating, he has been on the research staff at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD.
Alum: Anne Juggernauth, Ph.D. 2008-2012
Ph.D. graduate
Anne graduated in 2012 following a number of years in Macromolecular Science and Engineering focused on structure/property links in materials. Anne was a phenomenal microscopist and is now involved in technology assessment at the Univ of Chicago
Alum:Â Â Kiersten Batzli, Ph.D. 2010-2015
Ph.D Gradaute
Kiersten completed her Ph.D. following her BS program in biophysics at American University in Washington DC. She focused on amyloid gel formation and now is a certified patent lawyer following Law school;.  Love the B/W photo..., vintage!
