Principal Investigator
Eva Harth
Eva studied chemistry at the University of Bonn, Germany and the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She obtained her PhD in 1998 from the MPI for Polymer Research in Mainz (Klaus Muellen group). A postdoctoral fellowship with CPIMA (NSF-Center for Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies) brought her to the IBM Almaden Research Center, California USA, focusing on the development of new living free polymerization techniques and approaches to nanoscopic materials working with Craig Hawker. In 2001, she joined XenoPort, Inc. as a Staff Scientist and started 2004 at Vanderbilt University as Assistant Professor with a primary appointment in the Department of Chemistry and a secondary appointment in the Department of Pharmacology, VUMC. In 2007, she was awarded with the NSF CAREER Award. In 2011, she was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure and served three years as the Director and DGS of the Interdisciplinary Materials Science Graduate Program (IMS). During her career at Vanderbilt, she developed the nanosponge delivery system and the first generation of this technology is under license by a biotech start-up. Starting in the Fall 2017, she moved to the University of Houston where she is appointed as Full Professor with tenure in the Department of Chemistry and serves as the Director of the Center of Excellence in Polymer Chemistry, funded by the Welch Foundation and the University of Houston. From 2009-2018 she served full term as an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry, a journal of the RSC.
Inquiries about the vision of the Center of Excellence in Polymer Chemistry, please address directly to Eva Harth: harth@uh.edu
The center intents to develop strong collaborations with local industry and academia and please feel welcome to contact me.
Team – Graduates and Postdocs interested to join the team, please contact us
Dr. Valentin Puchelle
Valentin received his Bachelor Degree in 2015 from the University Paris-Est Ceteil (UPEC), France, with a dual degree in Chemistry and Biology. He then continued his studies at Sorbonne University and received a Master degree in 2017 in Chemistry and Physical Chemistry. In 10/2020 he completed this PhD. in Polymer Chemistry under the guidance of Professor Philippe Guegan and Dr. Nicolas Illy (IPCM) at Sorbonne.
Jacobo Strong
Jacobo is a Texas native from San Antonio and received his Bachelors of Science at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2020. With a strong interest in organic synthesis and polymer chemistry, he is now pursing a PhD. at UH and joined the Harth group in October of 2021.
Stephen Sarkar
Stephen is from Bangladesh and graduated with an M.Phil. from BUET, Bangladesh, in 2018. Stephen completed his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh, in 2010 and 2011, respectively. His previous research projects have focused on the synthesis of composite materials and studying their mechanical properties. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. at UH and has joined the Harth group in October 2021.
Muhammad Arslan
Muhammad received his Bachelors of Science with Honors in Chemistry from Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Pakistan with specialization in synthetic organic and inorganic chemistry. He is the recipient of the Higher Education Commission Fellowship, issued by the Government of Pakistan under the US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor Program. He is interested in all aspects of synthetic polymer chemistry and started in the Harth group in October 2021. His hobbies are photography and playing cricket.
D.A. Anwar Al-Aman
Anwar is from Bangladesh and received his Bachelor of Pharmacy (B. Pharm.) and Master of Pharmacy (M. Pharm.) degree from the University of Dhaka in 2013 and 2015 respectively. Aman has the experience of working both in industry and academia. Before enrolling in the Ph.D. program at the University of Houston he served as a faculty member at the State University of Bangladesh. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry at UH and joined the Harth group in November 2021.
Anthony Keyes
Anthony received his Bachelors of Science at Jackson State University, and went on to obtain his Master in Materials Science (June 2017) at the University of Bordeaux, LCPO, France, working with Dr. Olivier Sandre. Anthony has received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to fund his PhD in Polymer Chemistry. He is working in the Harth group on the development and expanding the scope of the newly discovered metal organic insertion/light induced radical (MILRad) polymerization.
Hatice Basbug Alhan
Hatice is originally from Turkey and finished her higher education at Bilkent University, Ankara, and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Chemistry. After working in industry for several years, she is now pursuing her Doctorate degree at the University of Houston and has joined the Harth group in September 2017. Her interests are the exploration of the MILRad polymerization and the further development of the Isomerization Polymerization of alpha-olefins.
Enkhjargal "Enja" Tsogtgerel
I’m originally from Mongolia and I’ve graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2016 with B.S in chemistry with Magna Cum Laude and worked on natural product synthesis projects. Started at UH August 2017 to pursue my PhD degree in Physical Chemistry and joined the Harth Lab in September 2017. She is working on nanoparticle development and the investigation of MILRad polymerization. In my free time I like to cook or explore restaurants in Houston.
Yu-Sheng Liu
Yu-Sheng is originally from Taiwan and finished his higher education at the National Sun Yat-Sen University in 2014 and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. After completing his military service he worked as Research Assistant at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Yu-Sheng is now continuing his education to pursue his Doctorate degree at the University of Houston and joined the Harth lab in September 2017. He is working on catalyst design.
Huong "Jen" Dau
Huong is originally from Vietnam and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy in 2014 and worked as Research Scientist at AstraZeneca in Ho Chi Minh for more than two years. She is now pursuing her Doctorate degree at UH and has joined the Harth group in September 2017. She is interested in mechanistic aspects of polymerizations and catalyst design.
Estela Ordonez Arteaga
Estela is originally from Ecuador and graduated with a double major in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2017. She is now pursuing her Doctorate degree at UH and has joined the Harth group in September 2017. Her interests are in nanoparticle design concerning drug delivery and probing the scope of MILRad polymerization .
Hasaan Rauf
Hasaan graduated from San Jose State University in 2019 with a B.S. and Masters degree with work on ADMET polymerization. He started in September 2019 in the Harth group and his project involves the development of novel metal-organic catalysts for olefin polymerization.
Dung "Dee" Nguyen
Dee graduated from Case Western University with a B.S. degree. He joined the group in September 2019 and is working on Isomerization polymerization and MILRad polymerization.
Chenying Zhao
Chenying graduated from Beijing University of Chemical Technology and came to the University of Akron and graduated in 2019 with a Masters degree under the guidance of Professor Colleen Pugh. She started in September 2019 and is interested in radical polymerizations.
Giovanna Valentina De Vita
Giovanna is a Senior Undergraduate Student at UH, majoring in Chemistry. She finished her honors thesis in the Fall of 2021 and continues to work as an undergraduate researcher in our group.
Undergraduate Students: Alumni
Undergraduate Students Vanderbilt 2005-20017
Fiona Denham (Honors Thesis); Evan Kravitz; Ariel Kravitz; Brian Mayersohn, Vasanth Sathiyakumar (Honors Thesis and Pearson Award Recipient 2013; Julian Greenbaum; Tyler Terrill; Brian McGrath; Joanne Chou; Harry Watson; Ray Wang; Julian Waksal; Sicheng Ma; Chris Gross; Mark Philipson; Philip Goldberg; Jesse Fenton; Anisse Chaker
Alumni
Alice van der Ende , PhD.
Alice defended in 2010 and she holds a current position as manager at DuPont.
Teresa Croce, PhD.
Teresa defended her thesis in July 2009 and holds a current position as CSO (Chief Food Safety Officer) at the FDA.
Sharon K. Hamilton, PhD.
Sharon defended in July 2009 her thesis and after postdoctoral work at Georia Tech she is now an Assistant Professor at Delta State University, MS.
Chinessa T. Adkins, PhD.
Chinessa defended in August 2009 and after postdoctoral work at the Howard Hughes Institute she is now a Patent Examiner at USPO.
Julia Dobish, M.S.
Julia obtained her M.S. in 2009 and continued as Research Assistant in the Harth group from 2009-2011. She is now working as consultant.
Artez Sims, PhD.
Artez defended in May 2013 and works in his current position as Instructor at Southwest Georgia Technical College and Educator at Thomasville City Schools.
David Stevens, PhD.
David Steves graduated in 2014 with a PhD. from the Department of Pharmacology, VUMC and is holding a senior position at the NCI at the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL). Through his extensive knowledge in the nanosponge delivery system and nanonetwork preparation, he is teaching and supporting the start-up who licensed the network technology (1. generation) developed in the Harth lab.
Benjamin Spears, PhD.
Ben graduated in 2015 and is now a Senior Research Scientist at SeLux Diagnostics, Inc. in Boston, MA.
Dain Beezer, PhD.
Dain defended his thesis in August 2017 and currently working as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Harth group at UH.
Kelly Gilmore, PhD.
Kelly defended her thesis in June 2017 and is now working as a Principal Scientist at Eco Labs, St. Paul, MN.
Michael Marin, PhD. in Chemical Engineering
Michael defended his thesis in March 2018 and graduated in August 2018. He holds a position at Hewlett Packard in San Diego, CA.
Laken Williams, PhD.
Laken defended her thesis in February 2019 and graduated in May 2019 from Vanderbilt. She started a position as Research Scientist at Clorox, CA.
Michael Lampley, PhD.
Michael graduated from Middle Tennessee State University and started in 2015 in the Harth group his graduate studies and moved with the group to UH. He graduated with a PhD. from VU in July 2019. Currently he is a Senior Scientist for Blacklidge Emulsion Inc. in Gulfport, MS working on asphalt materials.
Dain B. Beezer, PhD.
Dr. Dain B. Beezer is originally from Jamaica and graduated from Fisk University, Nashville, TN. He then completed a Masters degree in Johnson group at Vanderbilt through the Vanderbilt -Fisk Bridge Program. He conducted his PhD in in the Harth group and graduated in 2017. With the move of the group to UH in August 2017, he continued as postdoc from 2017-July 2020 to take then a position as Assistant Professor at Fisk University, which brought him back to Nashville. 🙂 Congratulations to your new position and good luck !
Glen R Jones, PhD.
Dr. Glen R. Jones completed his PhD in 2018 from the University of Warwick, UK, working under the guidance of Professor Haddleton. He joined the Harth group from October 2018 - August 2020 as postdoctoral scholar and investigated the isomerization of alpha olefins and their unique polymerization. He then returned to the UK.
Breyinn Loftin, PhD.
Breyinn is a native of Winston-Salem, NC. She graduated from Hampton University (Virginia) in 2016 earning a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in nanoscience. She joined the Harth group in Spring 2017 when still at Vanderbilt University and moved with the group to UH in the Fall of 2017. She became a recipient of the NSF graduate fellowship in 2018 with an application from UH. She graduated with a PhD. in August 2021.
Guangzhao Li, PhD.
Dr. Guangzhao Li was a postdoctoral scholar in the Harth group from 2012-2015 and went back to China where he is now an Associate Professor.
Fanny Joubert, PhD.
Dr. Fanny Joubert was a postdoctoral scholar in the Harth lab from January 2015 - January 2016.
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