Complex fluids – including polymers, particles, surfactants and biomolecules in solution – are key components in technologies spanning commodity and consumer products to cutting-edge pharmaceuticals and advanced materials. A common engineering feature of these materials is their structure, which often exists away from thermodynamic equilibrium at the “mesoscale” – in between the length scales of individual molecules and a bulk material.
The Helgeson Lab investigates the processing of mesostructured complex fluids to enable materials formulation, design and discovery. To do so, we develop experimental and theoretical tools for multi-scale and high-throughput characterization of fluid structure, dynamics and rheology. We have particular expertise in developing methods for in situ dynamic monitoring of fluids to characterize and model the evolution of material properties during processing. We apply these tools to engineer better materials for applications in human health, energy efficiency and sustainable materials.
Illustration of a colloidal gel forming by viscoelastic phase separation
Optical micrograph of a coarsening polyelectrolyte coacervate
Illustration of in situ scattering measurements in a high shear capillary device
Photograph of a fluidic four roll mill for probing complex fluids in complicated flows
Artist depiction of multi-phase nonoemulsion droplets
Recent Group News
2023.08.08 - Anukta wins BASF International Summer Course Poster Prize
Anukta won a poster award at the 2023 BASF International Summer Course in Ludwigshafen, Germany for her poster, titled "Understanding flow-structure properties of polymeric solutions". Congratulations, Anukta!
Continue Reading2023.08.08 - Anukta wins BASF International Summer Course Poster Prize2023.06.23 - Bon Voyage, Chris and Nairiti
This week we bid a fond farewell to our postdocs, Chris Barney and Nairiti Sinha.
Chris will be starting in August as an Assistant Professor in the School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering at the University of Akron, where his research program will be focused on the nonlinear mechanics of polymer networks.
Nairiti will be starting in July as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State University, where her research program will explore the use of sequence-defined polymers for next-generation biomaterials and nanocomposites.
Continue Reading2023.06.23 - Bon Voyage, Chris and Nairiti2023.05.23 - Tse-Chiang wins fellowship and passes Candidacy Exam
Double congratulations to Tse-Chiang! First, he was recently awarded a Taiwanese Ministry of Education Scholarship for graduate study! The fellowship recognizes outstanding Taiwanese students at international graduate programs worldwide. Second, Tse-Chiang successfully passed his Ph.D. Candidacy exam, titled "Understanding charge-modulated assembly of intrinsically disordered proteins for biomaterials discovery and design".
We look forward to Tse-Chiang's continue success for the remainder of his Ph.D.!
Continue Reading2023.05.23 - Tse-Chiang wins fellowship and passes Candidacy Exam
2023.03.23 - Welcome to the group: Kenneth Cerdán Gómez
We welcomed a new postdoc to the group, Dr. Kenneth Cerdán Gómez! Kenneth received his Ph.D. from KU Leuven in Belgium from the Soft Matter, Rheology and Technology (SMaRT) group under the supervision of Prof. Peter Van Puyvelde. At UCSB, he is co-supervised with Prof. Megan Valentine, and will be working on projects applying the group's recently-developed methods for high-throughput microrheology to study the structure and rheology of dynamic polymer networks. Welcome, Kenneth!
Continue Reading2023.03.23 - Welcome to the group: Kenneth Cerdán Gómez