Chelsea with her lab groups at UD and Purdue.
Chelsea Davis
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Interview: Summer 2024
CRiSP Interviewer (CI): Where did you grow up? Where did you get your PhD?
Chelsea Davis (CD): I grew up in Waynesville, NC, just outside of Asheville. I got my PhD at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
CI: How did you become interested in soft matter and polymers?
CD: A recruiter from NCSU College of Textiles (COT) visited my junior chemistry class in high school. She showed us a huge rubber shoe sole and said “this is one molecule”. From that moment on, I was obsessed. I attended a high school science camp at the COT that summer and ended up pursuing an undergrad degree in textile engineering initiated by that one outreach presentation.
CI: What is your research focus?
CD: My group is the “Illuminating Interfacial Mechanics” lab. We develop micromechanical measurement tools to investigate polymer surfaces and interfaces. We almost always incorporate some sort of visualization tool to see what is happening during our adhesion and fracture experiments. By coupling experiments like peel testing and normal (JKR) adhesion testing with advanced optical microscopy, we are able to gain new insights into how and why interfaces form and fail. (Read more about Chelsea’s research here)
CI: What made you choose academic research? Why did you choose the University of Delaware?
CD: I chose academic research because I love helping early career researchers become experts in their field. My passion for mentoring and advising my students and postdocs, guiding them through the dissertation process, and challenging them to be the best researchers that they can makes academia a great fit. I came to UD because of the concentrated research efforts in polymers and soft matter going on all over campus. I know that this is a great environment to give my students exposure to the leading polymer experts in the world.
CI: Was there a faculty member from your undergraduate/graduate experience that inspired you? How?
CD: My PhD advisor, Al Crosby, inspired me to strive for excellence. I recognize how mundane it is to pick my dissertation advisor for inspiration, but Al taught me to think critically about my science and communicate it clearly. His way of presenting his research in such a succinct, elegant way was the reason that I wanted to work for him. I now work to train my students based on the writing and presentation skills that I learned from Al.
CI: How do you approach collaborations within your work?
CD: I love working with people far outside of my field of expertise. When we are able to find an overlapping research question that pushes both of us to learn a ton about the other’s discipline, both collaborators grow so much more. Because my group specializes in developing metrology tools to characterize difficult or weird polymer interfaces, we tend to work with others who develop novel functional materials. “They make it, we break it” is a common motto in my lab.
CI: How do you handle hitting a wall or encountering obstacles in your research?
CD: If I hit a wall or encounter an obstacle in my research, I walk away (temporarily). Sometimes, taking a literal walk is all that is required to give my brain a break and think about the problem in a new way. Other times, I will ruminate on the obstacle for several days, but I normally come up with a new strategy pretty quickly. Being willing to cut your losses and pivot to a new approach is sometimes the best way around. The challenge lies in figuring out when to walk away, when to push through, and when to pivot.
CI: How do you approach intellectual property and tech transfer in your work?
CD: I approach IP and tech transfer openly, filing disclosures early and often. Because we have the benefit of a great tech transfer office here at UD, I communicate with them as soon as we have an idea about something that might be patentable. That way, we can be proactive about filing provisional patents and careful not to make public disclosures too early.
CI: Outside of work and research, how do you like to spend your time?
CD: I became obsessed with houseplants during the pandemic. My collection got pretty out of control by 2022 but I still have a lot of watering, pruning, and repotting to do. I have also been exploring Delaware’s state parks with my bernedoodle, Barnaby. Most weekends, we will go hiking in White Clay Creek or play at the Bark Park at Lum’s Pond.
CI: What is the most valuable piece of advice you received when you were just getting started in science?
CD: “If you can’t explain what your science is and why it matters, then why do it?” I don’t remember who said this to me when I first entered graduate school (probably Al). These have been words to live by ever since and have led me to develop a graduate course helping UD STEM students improve their technical communication skills. Well described, clear science is crucial to share our work with the world.