Elina was born and raised in Nepal. She attended the University of Southern Mississippi where she received her bachelor’s degree in Polymer Science. At USM, Elina worked with Professor Yoan C. Simon where her project focused on the study of the co-assembly behavior of block copolymers into vesicular structures. During the fall of 2020, she joined the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and is currently advised by Professor Stuart J. Rowan.
Elina is currently working with materials which have the ability to be trained by selectively reorganizing their constituent units in response to macroscopic deformation, thereby generating improved material properties. To study trainability in materials, she utilizes dynamically crosslinked liquid crystal elastomers (LCE), where liquid crystal units in the LCEs impart mechanical robustness and dynamic covalent bonds allow for the molecular rearrangement in the system.
Exploring the effect of dynamic bond placement in liquid crystal elastomers
Charlie A. Lindberg, Elina Ghimire, Chuqiao Chen, Sean Lee, Neil D. Dolinski, Joseph M. Dennis, Sihong Wang, Juan J. de Pablo, Stuart J. Rowan. Journal of Polymer Science (2023) 1-9