Dedication to Polymer Science & Engineering Research and Education at UMass Amherst

Abstract

The accelerating growth and societal importance of polymers span academic disciplines—chemistry, engineering, physics, materials, and interfacial science—and now penetrate critically important aspects of healthcare, energy, transportation, and technology sectors. The University of Massachusetts Amherst has played a pioneering role in the evolution of polymer science, helping transform early industrial discoveries into the modern inclusion of polymers in nearly all academic departments in the materials, chemistry, and engineering disciplines. UMass Amherst, originally founded as the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863 following the federal Morrill Act, celebrated its 160th anniversary in concert with the Polymer Science & Engineering (PSE) Department entering its 60th year of dedication to the polymer field. As such, it is a pleasure to present this special issue of the Journal of Polymer Science, with contributed manuscripts, review articles, and topical perspectives by UMass faculty members (both current and prior) as well as PSE alumni. The subjects of the manuscripts—spanning nanocomposites, biomaterials, interfacial science, theory, and structural characterization—illustrate examples of forefront research in the polymer field.

Polymers at UMass Amherst: a Brief History and Glimpse Forward. In 1961, UMass Amherst formalized an educational emphasis in polymers by launching the Polymer Research Institute led by Professor Richard Stein. Shortly thereafter, the PSE Department formed. Notably, its first alumnus, Dr. Tisato Kajiyama, became the 21st President of Kyushu University in Japan. Over 700 PhD alumni have since matriculated from PSE and are now found in positions as visionary leaders in industry, academics, and government in the United States and abroad. In the decades following its founding, PSE expanded into a robust Department, now comprising 20 faculty members and a steady state of over 100 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as frequent U.S. and international visitors who contribute to a vibrant polymer community. A foundational (>40 year) student exchange program with the University of Mainz reflected how international cooperation leads to rich educational impact and long-standing professional endeavors. New efforts with Hokkaido University in Japan (with its 19th century historical ties to UMass as the Sapporo Agricultural College) and the University of Bayreuth will further strengthen international collaboration. Much of PSE's growth has been enabled by federal support, including Center-level grants from the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, as well as the Center for UMass-Industry Research on Polymers (CUMIRP), an outgrowth of the initial class of NSF-supported Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers. All PSE researchers and visitors benefit from an outstanding suite of facilities, which serve our researchers as well as the broader materials community, while bolstering collaborative academic-industrial activity and technology transfer. Moving forward, we strive toward accomplishments that meet critically important modern challenges—sustainability, energy, and the intersection of polymers with health and medicine—with new faculty hires and incoming students being essential to ensuring continuous innovation.

The collection of articles in this special issue of the Journal of Polymer Science reflects the shear breadth and depth of modern polymer science. Pertaining to nanoscale science, functional polymer ligands boost the efficiency of flexible films of brightly emitting semiconductors (pol.20230644), while performing light-triggered reactions on polymers uniquely templates the formation of nanoscale arrays (pol.20230385). At the same time, a renaissance in understanding of nanoscale domains in polymer gels and films is arising from high-resolution electron microscopy with focus on polymer interfaces (pol.20230647) and new liquid imaging techniques applied to solvent-swollen gels (pol.20230907), while quantitative X-ray scattering and reflectivity methods offer structural insights into thin polymer films (pol.20230530).

Biological connections to synthetic polymers are expanding rapidly across peptide- and peptoid-based structures (pol.20230651), illustrated further in this issue by engineering hydrogels for biotoxin sequestration (pol.20230788), supramolecular polymerization of DNA (pol.20230639), and novel, designer polyzymes as biorthogonal nanocatalysts (pol.20230582). Efforts in polymer complexation and understanding of domain structure exploit advances in polymer architecture, such as bottlebrush polyelectrolyte complexes (pol.20230540) and block copolymer packing geometry (pol.20230748), with key roles in encoding network topology (pol.20230594). Several articles describe a sweeping array of advances in mechanical properties and processing of macromolecular materials, with topics covering stress relaxation of high T_g conjugated polymer thin films (pol.20230671), polymer deformation with human skin analogs (pol.20230587), in situ evolution of polymer sintering processes (pol.20230156), high performance composite materials (pol.20230592), polymer foam preparation (pol.20230167), extensional rheological properties (pol.20230449), and elastomeric composites with liquid metals in the context of soft electronics (pol.20230616).

Notably, the combination of synthesis, properties, and theory permeates many of the articles, with specific examples of new syntheses featuring radical copolymerizations of cyclic ketene acetals (pol.20230480) and photo-induced conformational transformations of biodegradable aliphatic polyesters (pol.20230911). Theoretical advances are described in the context of conformational entropy associated with melting of semicrystalline polymers (pol.20230576). Altogether, we hope that readers are struck by the excitement of these types of advances that, projecting forward, predict a wealth of new opportunities as the field of polymers deepens its fundamental knowledge and intersects more extensively across disciplines.