MSE Colloquium: Dr. Winston Soboyejo, New Frontiers for Material for Health, Energy, and the Environment: From Cancer Detection and Treatment to Solar Energy and Multifunctional Materials

Provost and Senior Vice President, Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Abstract

This talk presents some examples of efforts to develop materials for applications in health, energy, affordable housing, and transportation. The talk is divided into three parts. In the first part of the talk, ligand-conjugated magnetic nanoparticles and cancer drugs are presented for the specific targeting and detection/treatment of triple negative breast cancer. A combination of thermodynamics and kinetics concepts is used to provide new insights for the development of targeted nanoparticles and cancer drugs for the detection and localized treatment of cancer. In the second part of the talk, solar cells and light emitting devices are presented for the pressure-assisted fabrication of organic and perovskite solar cells. The key role of adhesion and surface contacts is then explored in the design of pressure-assisted methods for the fabrication of solar cells and LEDs with improved performance. The implications of the results are discussed for the development of solar powered systems and light emitting devices for applications in rural/urban contexts. Finally, in the third part of the talk, multifunctional materials are presented for applications in robust/sustainable affordable housing and transportation systems. These include: natural fiber-reinforced composites; mycelium nanocomposites; micro-/nano-porous ceramics, and structural alloys. The implications of the work are then discussed for the design of multifunctional robust materials

Bio

Wole Soboyejo received a BSc in mechanical engineering from King’s College London in 1985. He obtained his PhD in materials science from Cambridge University in 1988. Between 1988 and 1992, he worked as a Research Scientist at the McDonnell Douglas Research Labs. In 1992, he worked briefly at the Edison Welding Institute before joining the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University (1992-1999). Between 1997 and 1998, he spent a year as a Visiting Martin Luther King Associate Professor at MIT. He then moved to Princeton University as a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (1999-2016). Soboyejo was the President and Provost of the African University of Science and Technology (2012-2014) before moving to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) as the Bernard M. Gordon Dean of Engineering in 2016. Since 2018 Soboyejo has served as Senior Vice President and Provost at WPI. He is the recipient of National Young Investigator Awards from the NSF and the Office of Naval Research. He is also the recipient of ASM’s Bradley Stoughton Award, the Lumley Research Award of The Ohio State University, and Princeton University’s Old School Award for Innovation. Soboyejo is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS), the African Academy of Science, and the Materials Society of Nigeria.