Faculty Spotlights

The Muir Lab designs hydrogel biomaterials and biofabrication platforms to study cell behavior and create functional living materials. Our approach integrates ideas from biomaterials science, biofabrication, microbiology, 3D printing, biophysics, and embracing “maker culture” to address challenges across medicine and environmental science. Current areas of research include (1) designing materials to study cell movement in complex environments; (2) creating microenvironments to study host-pathogen interactions; (3) designing microbial living biomaterials; and (4) biofabrication for soft and living materials.

Dr. Pester began his independent academic career at the Pennsylvania State University, where he became the Thomas K. Hepler Early Career Professor in Chemical Engineering. He was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2023 with courtesy appointments in the Chemistry Department and the Materials Science and Engineering Department. In 2024, Dr. Pester joined the University of Delaware as an Associate Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department.

From 2012-2013, Dr. Davis was a Michelin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ESPCI ParisTech working with Dr. Costantino Creton and Dr. Anke Lindner. She went on to complete a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Polymers and Complex Fluids Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 2013 to 2016. In 2017, she established the Illuminating Interfacial Mechanics Lab in the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. Dr. Davis joined the University of Delaware in 2023 as an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

My research group builds microfluidic platforms to study and enhance diffusive and advective transport in multiphase materials. Fundamental questions related to rheology, structure, and dynamics have implications in diverse applications and industries. Active projects in my group address grand challenges in additive manufacturing, bioprinting, and sustainable formulation science.