Author Archives: micahar2@illinois.edu

2026 Symposium Speaker: Dr. Adrian Figg

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Approaching Acrylic Copolymer Structures Differently

Assistant Professor Adrian Figg from the Virginia Tech.

Dr. Figg is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech in the Department of Chemistry. His research specializes in polymer, organic, and protein chemistry.

Group Website: https://figglab.com/ 

Dr. Figg’s lecture is part of the 2026 St. Elmo Brady Symposium. Additional information can be found under the ‘St. Elmo Brady Lecture Series’ tab or by clicking this link.

Seminar Abstract:

Controlled polymerization techniques (e.g., reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization) provide access to defined copolymer structures where block sequence, monomer composition, and architecture can be readily tuned. Herein, syntheses approaches will be introduced that take advantage of photoinduced electron/energy transfer (PET) catalysis to control mechanisms of radical introduction. For example, we developed synthetic methods to yield polymers containing more precise control over monomer placement and sequence. Additionally, new ways of interfacing acrylic copolymers with proteins to modulation functions show that copolymer composition is critical to achieve protein recognition. Overall, new synthetic design considerations for acrylic copolymers using RAFT polymerization will be discussed. 

Biography: Adrian earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2013. During that time, he did research internships at Los Alamos National Lab and with Bert Meijer and Patricia Dankers at the Technical University of Eindhoven. He performed undergraduate research at UCSB with Craig Hawker and Brett Fors studying photomediated reactions and Suzuki coupling reactions. In 2018, Adrian earned his doctorate degree in chemistry from the University of Florida with Brent Sumerlin. For his thesis, he developed synthetic methods to defined polymer structures using controlled radical polymerization (CRP). During this time, he was also a visiting research scholar with Prof. Cyrille Boyer at the University of New South Wales. Adrian conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University from 2018-2021. His postdoctoral research focused on applying concepts of CRP to oligonucleotide and protein assemblies. Adrian started as an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech in the Chemistry Department in 2021. The Figg Group develops CRP techniques to access macromolecules that can be programmed to study diseases or access high performance materials. 

Fall 2025 Speaker: Dr. Uzoma Nwabara

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Discovering oxygen evolution catalysts via high-throughput experimentation

Dr. Nwabara is a research scientist at UL Research Institutes in the Materials Discovery Research Institute

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uzomanwabara/

Dr. Nwabara’s lecture is part of the 2025 St. Elmo Brady Lecture Series. Additional information can be found under the ‘St. Elmo Brady Lecture Series’ tab or by clicking this link.

Seminar Abstract:

Climate change demands solutions to decrease CO2 emissions now. Producing green hydrogen through water electrolysis is one of many promising pathways, but catalyst costs mainly hamper the scaling up of this technology. Thus, cost-effective catalyst discovery — at an accelerated pace — would greatly boost the feasibility of green hydrogen production. At MDRI, we are incorporating various high-throughput instruments, such as a spark ablation nanoprinting, to design, characterize, and test nanoparticle catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction, a half reaction in water electrolysis. With 22 different metals to choose from and over 10 tunable printing parameters, nanoprinting allows for a myriad of potential single metal and alloy catalyst samples. Automated characterization provides composition, crystallography, and thickness while a scanning droplet cell evaluates multiple samples in series. These samples ultimately help build unique datasets for validating density functional theory models and for training machine learning models for better guided material design.

– Dr. Uzoma Nwabara, November 2025

Biography: Upon completing her Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Dr. Nwabara pursued her Ph.D. in Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With Prof. Paul Kenis as an advisor, her research focused on designing selective catalysts for and improving the durability of electrochemical CO2 reduction conducted in flow cells. After finishing her PhD in 2021, Dr. Nwabara joined Twelve, a start-up in Berkeley focusing on scaling up CO2 electroreduction, developing characterization methods and setups before moving to MDRI at UL Research Institutes as a in January 2024. She now researches and conducts high throughput experiments for accelerated discovery of water splitting catalysts.