Abstract:

Syensqo is a world leader in high-performance Specialty Polymers. Our broad portfolio of products have been created to maintain their performance in the harshest environments: each one with the specific combination of properties needed for exceptional heat resistance and chemical inertness, strength and toughness, lightweighting and design flexibility, biocompatibility and many more. Our materials meet the needs of the most demanding industries, ranging from deep-sea exploration to implantable spinal devices. In our dedicated centers of research and innovation, world-class polymer scientists develop strong, lightweight polymers, fluids and elastomers that provide competitive solutions, greater design freedom and added value for our partners.

The Polymer Physics group focuses on building deeper understanding of the structure-property relationships that govern high performance Specialty Polymers and Composites through a blend of experiments, simulations, and modeling. In this seminar, I will present case studies showing how we use fundamental understanding to design new materials for challenging applications.

Biography:

Laura Gray is a Research Scientist at Syensqo Specialty Polymers (formerly part of Solvay) in Alpharetta GA. She received her BS in Physics and BA in History from North Carolina State University in 2009. As an undergrad, she conducted research in granular materials with Karen Daniels. She received her PhD in Physics from Emory University in 2015 in the group of Connie Roth. Her PhD focused on physical aging of polymer glasses formed under deformation. Gray then conducted a post-doc in the Chemical & Biological Engineering department at Princeton University working on glassy polymer kinetics and thermodynamics confined within thin films and colloids. Since joining Syensqo in 2019, she has continued to pursue fundamental polymer physics research in an industrial setting.