Physical Chemistry Seminar: Professor Monica Olvera de la Cruz, Northwestern University
"Control of soft matter"
Host: Grant Rotskoff
About the Seminar
Heterogeneous molecules such as amphiphiles and biopolymers are ubiquitous components of life and physical sciences. In this talk, I will describe how to control the organization and key functions of heterogeneous molecules into functional structures such as catalytic closed shells and co-assemblies of polyelectrolytes with enzymes into membranes that mimic organelles.
About the Speaker
Monica Olvera de la Cruz obtained her Ph.D. in Physics from Cambridge University, UK, in 1985. She joined Northwestern University in 1986, where she is the Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, and by courtesy, Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Chemical & Biological Engineering. She is the Director of the Center for Computation and Theory of Soft Materials. From 1995-97 she was a Staff Scientist in the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, Saclay, France, where she also held visiting scientist positions in 1993 and 2003. She has developed theoretical models to determine the thermodynamics, statistics, and dynamics of soft materials including multicomponent solutions of heterogeneous synthetic and biological molecules, and molecular electrolytes. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). Throughout her career, she has been awarded multiple fellowships, awards, and prizes including the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator award, the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship (renamed Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship), and the APS Polymer Physics prize. She has served in the Advisory Committees of the Department of Energy Basic Energy Science Program (2012-21) and the NSF Mathematical and Physical Science Directorate (2005-09), as well as in various committees of the National Research Council (NRC) including the Board of Physics and Astronomy (2009-15), and served as chair and vice-chair of the NRC Condensed Matter and Materials Research Committee. She serves in the scientific advisory committee of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, and ESPCI (École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris). She is a Senior Editor for the ACS Central Science and a member of the PNAS editorial board, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Gordon Research Conferences (2019-27).