Lu Li received her bachelor of engineering in polymer science and engineering from the Zhejiang University. Lu is currently a second-year PhD student in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and is advised by Professor Matthew Tirrell. During her undergraduate study, she worked with Professor Jian Ji in the National Student Research Training Program to use zwitterionic ligand of carboxybetaine lipoic acid to stabilize gold nanorods, which could serve as a tool to transfer hear under near infrared light to kill tumor cells. With the help of Professor Zhengke Wang, her bachelor's thesis was about developing bio-inspired hollow layered chitosan conduits regulated by iron ions to get better biological and mechanical performances.
Lu's research is going to be mainly directed toward experimental as well as theoretical determination of phase behavior of mixtures of solutions of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes. She is currently using simple polyelectrolytes as model materials and trying to figure out the exact ratio of salt distribution in polyelectrolyte complex and supernatant phase.
Effect of Solvent Quality on the Phase Behavior of Polyelectrolyte Complexes
Lu Li, Artem M Rumyantsev, Samanvaya Srivastava, Siqi Meng, Juan J de Pablo, Matthew V Tirrell. "Effect of Solvent Quality on the Phase Behavior of Polyelectrolyte Complexes", Macromolecules, 2020.
Integrating Systems Thinking into Teaching Emerging Technologies
Fowler, Whitney C., Jeffrey M. Ting, Siqi Meng, Lu Li, and Matthew V. Tirrell. "Integrating Systems Thinking into Teaching Emerging Technologies." Journal of Chemical Education (2019).
Phase Behavior and Salt Partitioning in Polyelectrolyte Complex Coacervates
L. Li, S. Srivastava, M. Andreev, A. Marciel, J.de Pablo, M. V. Tirrell. Phase Behavior and Salt Partitioning in Polyelectrolyte Complex Coacervates. Macromolecules. 2018. Vol. 51, Pg. 2988–2995.
Effects of non-electrostatic intermolecular interactions on the phase behavior of pH-sensitive polyelectrolyte complexes
Lu Li, Samanvaya Srivastava, Siqi Meng, Jeffrey M Ting, Matthew V Tirrell. "Effects of non-electrostatic intermolecular interactions on the phase behavior of pH-sensitive polyelectrolyte complexes", Macromolecules, 2020.