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Our latest paper was published in JACS! Congrats to Molly, Skylar, and Yan!

Congrats to Molly and coauthors Skylar and Yan on their latest publication appearing in JACS! We show that mechanical force enables an anomolous dual ring-opening reaction of naphthodipyran to generate an unusual dimerocyanine dye with near-IR absorption. Read more about it here.

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Our latest paper was published in ACS Polymers Au! Congrats to Stella, Ross, and Anna!

Congrats to Stella and coauthors Ross and Anna on their latest publication in ACS Polymers Au! We highlight the significant difference in mechanochemical reactivity between furan-maleimide and anthracene-maleimide mechanophores, despite similar reactivity predicted by CoGEF calculations. Read more about it here! 

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Anna awarded Barbara J. Burger Graduate Fellowship!

Congratulations to Anna who was awarded the 2022-23 Barbara J. Burger Graduate Fellowship! 

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Our latest paper was published in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats, Corey!

Congratulations to Corey and Xiaoran on their latest publication appearing in ACS Macro Letters! We describe a new mechanophore design that enables the effiecient release of cargo molecules in aprotic environments. Read more here.

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Jolly named a 2022 John Stauffer SURF Fellow!

Congratulations to Jolly Patro on being named a 2022 John Stauffer SURF Fellow at Caltech! 

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Anna's paper featured on the front cover of ACS Macro Letters!

Anna's recent paper was featured on the front cover of the June issue of ACS Macro Letters! Check it out here.

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The Robb Group welcomes Amgen Scholar Liam Ordner!

We are excited to welcome Liam Ordner this summer as an Amgen Scholar! Liam joins us from Georgia Tech where he has been working in the Gutekunst Group. 

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Our latest paper was published in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats, Anna!

Anna's paper examining how mechanophore activity influences the selectivity of mechanochemical chain scission was published today in ACS Macro Lett! Check it out here. 

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Max Receives 2022 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award!

Max was named a 2022 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar! Many thanks to the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation for this incredible honor and to the extraordinarily talented members of the Robb group that made it possible! Link here.

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We wrote about some awesome research from the Moore group!

Ross and Max were excited for the opportunity to highlight recent research from the Moore group on mechanically triggered release of carbon monoxide with turn-on aggregation-induced emission. Check out the highlight here, which was published in the journal Aggregate.

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Max receives 2022 PMSE Young Investigator Award!

Max was selected as a 2022 PMSE Young Investigator!  He will present a lecture during the fall ACS meeting in the PMSE Young Investigator Symposium, which is a forum to highlight the professional accomplishments of early-career investigators who are emerging as leaders in the field of polymer science and engineering. Link here.

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Max selected as an ORGN Academic Young Investigator!

Max was selected to speak in the Academic Young Investigators Syposium held by the Organic Division of the American Chemical Society at the upcoming fall ACS meeting in Chicago. The symposium will feature pre-tenure professors and will "highlight the vitality of research in the field of organic chemistry."

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The group receives a NSF CAREER Award!

Quite the exciting day!  We also received the official award notice for a NSF CAREER award (CHE-2145791) that will support our research on naphthopyran mechanochemistry as well as a number of educational initiatives to broaden participation and enable training of undergraduate and graduate students. Props to students Molly and Skylar who contributed significantly to the proposal! Link here.

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Max receives 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship!

Max was selected as a 2022 Sloan Research Fellow! Many thanks to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for this tremendous honor and to the hard work and creativity of the Robb group for making it possible! Link here.

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Our latest paper was published in Macromolecules! Congrats to Anna and Molly!

Congratulations to Anna and Molly for their recent paper published in Macromolecules! We systematically investigated different methods of characterizing activation rates for scissile mechanophores and provide insight into the role of molecular weight dispersity on ultrasound-induced mechanophore activation. Read more about it here!

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Our latest paper was published in JACS! Congrats to Brooke, May, and Xiaoran!

Out now in JACS, we provide our perspective on the development of mechanophores for molecular release and the future of this exciting research area. Congratulations to Brooke and coauthors May + Xiaoran for leading the effort! Check it out here.

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Welcome to new graduate students Debbie and Yan!

We are excited to welcome first year graduate students Yu-Ling (Debbie) Tseng and Yan Sun to the Robb group! Debbie recently earned a M.S. in Chemistry from National Taiwan University and Yan earned a B.S. in Chemistry from SUSTech (Shenzhen, China). Welcome aboard!

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Our latest paper was published in Chemical Communications! Congrats to May and Xiaoran!

Congratulations to May and Xiaoran on their latest publication in ChemComm! We report a readily synthesized mechanophore enabling the efficient mechanically triggered release of phenol and arylamine molecular payloads. Read more about it here.

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The Robb group welcomes Dr. Peng Liu!

A warm welcome to our newest postdoc, Dr. Peng Liu!  Peng earned his PhD in 2020 from the University of Fribourg working with Prof. Andreas Kilbinger.  He joins us after a brief stay as a postdoc with Profs. Nico Bruns, Chris Weder, and Michael Mayer where he got a head start honing his polymer mechanochemistry skills.  Welcome to Caltech, Peng!

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Our latest paper was published in Chemical Science! Way to go, Ross!

Our latest publication appears in Chemical Science! We demonstrate a new highly modular and synthetically accessible mechanophore platform that enables mechanically gated photoswitching in solution and in solid polymeric materials. Congrats, Ross! Check it out here.