Author: Christopher Johnson
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At the tail end of July leading into August, I gave a talk at what was my first Gordon Research Seminar (and subsequent Gordon Research Conference). This was the Polymer Physics meeting, hosted by Chinedum Osuji and Arthi Jayaraman, both former advisors of mine! It was an excellent conference, and a really good way to…
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I am excited to share that a work that was officially published in Nature Communications. If you want to read it, give it a look at this link. In this study, my colleagues Ranadeb Ball, Lizhu Zhang and I probed how ions move in sub-nm hydrated spaces. It was a really fun work that showed…
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In April 2026, a poster I made describing current research on low-temperature battery development received second in the University of Maryland Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department Showcase, in the postdoctoral researcher and graduate student category. While a bit late to the punch, I am happy to share that achievement now, especially as we reach the…
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When I lived in Philly, the interactions I felt were both the friendliest and the most confusing were those with stoop neighbors. In the piece “Woman on the Stoop,” published in Paper Dragon, I explore those experiences. Check it out on the magazine’s website (the other poems in this journal are excellent too): https://drexelpaperdragon.com/woman-on-the-stoop/
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Nanoporous polymer networks can help advance the next generation of catalytic technologies. In a paper authored by Dr. Keira Culley, in which I assisted with X-ray scattering experiments, we see the realm of possibilities offered by highly ordered lyotropic networks. Cubic networks made of lyotropic materials, as evidenced by previous work, can exhibit size-discrimination. If…
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The next generation of batteries and energy generation devices require both precise, size-controlled engineering and renewable materials sources. My good colleague Dr. Ruiqi Dong and I aimed to accomplish both of these goals in a study published in ACS Materials Letters. The article, linked here, showed that we can rapidly conduct potassium through a polymer…
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Oh my, we did it again. We cannot be stopped. This time, 6 contestants, all engineers of some renown (nearly no renown is still some) joined the fray in a new set of creative and fun tasks. See our goofy trailer below: Dan (left) eked out a victory in a tiebreaker, but everyone did very…
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The Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania gave me the opportunity to meet some of the most talented scientists I have had the pleasure of working with. Myself, Dr. Ranadeb Ball, and Lizhu Zhang explored the fundamentals of ion transport in nanopores, using the lyotropic mesophase system that had…
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The Osuji group (where I did my Ph.D.) had a very strong and fruitful relationship with the former Gin group of the University of Colorado-Boulder. One collaboration that was particularly fun was a mechanical analysis study performed with Dr. Lauren Bodkin. The paper, entitled “Effect of localized control of cross-link density on mechanical properties of…
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During the early days of my Ph.D., I worked in tandem with Dr. Keira Culley at the University of Colorado-Boulder, as part of her thesis work in the Gin group. She was interested in creating complex polymer structures that could aid in catalysis. I was quite skilled in identifying the order those polymer structures contained,…