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Connie RothProfessor and Department Chair

Awards and Honors

  • NSF Special Creativity Award (2022)
  • Fellow of the American Physical Society (2019)
  • Fellows Award, North American Thermal Analysis Society (2019)
  • Identified as a "top reviewer" for the Journal of Chemical Physics (2016)
  • NSF CAREER award (2012)
  • DPOLY/UKPPG Polymer Lecture Exchange, American Physical Society (2009)
  • American Chemical Society PRF Doctoral New Investigator (2009)
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Graduate Scholar of Canada (1997-2001)
  • NSERC Undergraduate Award in Industry, Xerox Research Centre of Canada (1995)

Education

Ph.D., University of Guelph, 2004

Publication

View publications on Google Scholar.

Research

Research Area

Experimental soft condensed matter physics. Polymer materials, glass transition, physical aging, photophysics, miscibility and phase separation; Effect of nanoconfinement, surfaces and interfaces, external stresses, electric fields, and nanoparticles.

Research Interests

How are the physical properties and dynamics of polymer materials affected by interactions between different components within a system or external perturbations? How can such interactions or perturbations provide new insight into the underlying mechanisms or length scales affecting that material?

For example, glassy materials are non-equilibrium systems that undergo structural relaxation (or physical aging) related to how the material was trapped in its frustrated state. How mobility is imparted to glassy systems can tell us about the cooperative many-body motions that control the "freezing-in" of this non-equilibrium structure. Developing complex systems into material applications involves understanding the system as a whole.

How the properties of polymers would change when placed in environments relevant to technological applications enables tuning the material properties and creating materials by design.