Dr. Mitch Anthamatten joins the Department of Chemical Engineering
January 1, 2004
(January, 2004) Mitchell Anthamatten joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester. Mitch earned his degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 2001 and M.S., 1998) and from the University of Missouri—Columbia (B.S., 1996). As the author of several refereed publications, Mitch has built a reputation as an applied experimentalist working at the interface between chemistry, physics, and engineering. His research career began in 1993 at the University of Missouri- Columbia where he investigated the stereochemistry and stereoelectronics of para-substituted acetophenone azines. These compounds can exhibit a high degree of parallel dipole alignment and show promise as novel nonlinear optical materials. This project took Mitch to Germany where he collaborated with an inorganic group in a NATO-sponsored research effort. His doctoral research focused on highly asymmetric diblock copolymers, in which one block is a simple linear chain, and the second block is a flexible backbone that is fully substituted with liquid crystalline side-groups. His dissertation on “Order in Side-Chain Liquid Crystalline Diblock Copolymers” contributed to our understanding of the phase behavior of these complex systems, and includes among the first examination of the relationship between order-disorder and order-order transitions of these block copolymers and the isotropization of the liquid crystalline state. Mitch has dedicated the past two years at Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory addressing key problems associated with laser fusion-target technology. He is especially recognized for his effort in understanding and optimizing the surface morphology of chemical vapor-deposited polyimide targets. His current research interests are directed at understanding the ordering phenomena of functional macromolecules that can lead to complex, hierarchal structures. Specifically his is investigating the bulk and surface behavior of functional polymers, the self-assembly of H-bonded polymers, and solvent-vapor surface smoothing of polymeric materials.