Group News

New Group Members

August 2022

Two new Ph.D. students joined the group this Fall semester.

Angie Rojas, Ph.D. student in Materials Engineering will be co-advised by Prof. Amy Marconnet.

Cassidy J Holdeman, Ph.D. student in Materials Engineering.

Welcome to the group Angie and CJ!

Upcoming Ph.D. Defense

June 2022

Naomi will be defending her Ph.D. thesis on June 27th. Please contact Professor Davis via email regarding virtual meeting log-in information.

Best wishes Naomi!

New Group Members

January 2022

Two new Ph.D. students joined the group this Spring semester.

Tyler Jacob Roberts, Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering will be co-advised by Prof. Stephen Beaudoin.

Geeta Pokhrel, Ph.D. student in Materials Engineering will be co-advised by Prof. John Howarter

Welcome to the group Tyler and Geeta!

Upcoming Ph.D. Defense

October 14, 2021

Hyeyoung and Jo will be defending their Ph.D. thesis on October 18th and October 20th respectively. Please contact Professor Davis via email regarding virtual meeting log-in information.

Best wishes Hyeyoung and Jo!

Professor Chelsea Davis Recipient of NSF Career Award

Congratulations to Professor Davis, for receiving the NSF CAREER Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her work will explore the use of illuminating stress sensors known as mechanophores to visualize the mechanical performance of soft material interfaces. More information can be found here.

Mitchell Rencheck to Defend His Dissertation

November 24, 2020

Mitch has performed extensive work in developing new and innovative materials characterization techniques. These techniques utilize buckling mechanics to measure the mechanical properties of polymers and using luminescent mechanophores to visualize stress and monitor failure of various polymer systems. Click here to learn more information about his defense.

Hugh Grennan Presents at the Fall 2020 Purdue Undergraduate Research Expo

November 14, 2020

Hugh presented his research on determining the modulus of temporary pavement marking using the Peirce cantilever method. You can watch his presentation here!

Jared Gohl Successfully Defended His Preliminary Exam

May 7, 2020

Jared is now a Ph.D. candidate after presenting his preliminary research on developing a new method to measure the peel strength of pressure sensitive adhesives.

Mitchell Rencheck named Dean’s Teaching Fellow 2020

Mitchell Rencheck was one of three graduate students selected to be the first Dean’s Teaching Fellows for 2020. This opportunity will provide Mitchell with a chance to learn and perform teaching skills required to be an effective instructor.

“I was excited about applying for this opportunity because it will allow me to share my enthusiasm for materials engineering and allow me to develop my skills as an instructor at the same time,” said Mitchell Rencheck

See the Article

DRG Summer Undergraduate is Featured on the Materials Engineering Website

Eline Ghimire joined the DRG group as a SURF participant to understand adhesion mechanics between rigid microspheres and soft substrates.

See the Article

End of Year Celebration

April 30, 2018

Thanks for a great year. Looking forward to a productive summer. 

Allison Chau wins First Place Oral Presentation

April 10, 2018

Congrats to Allison! She took the top prize among the oral presentations  at the campus-wide Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference!

Thanks to the Davis Research Group members that attended to support her presentation and a special thanks to Hyeyoung for her consistent mentorship throughout the year.

Welcome New Undergraduate Researchers

January 2018

The Davis Research Group is pleased to welcome several new undergraduate researchers!

Tara Goldberg (Sophomore in Materials Science and Engineering) will be working with Naomi on fluorescent dye functionalization of surfaces.

Michael Klingseisen (Sophomore in Materials Science and Engineering) will be working with Amin on LabView coding.

Nolan Miller (Sophomore in Materials Science and Engineering) will be working with Mitchell and Hyeyoung on thin film buckling mechanics.

If you are interested in performing independent undergraduate research (MSE 499) in our group, please contact Dr. Davis.

Hyeyoung Successfully Defended her Prelim

October 2, 2017

Hyeyoung is now officially a Ph.D. candidate after presenting her preliminary research results and successfully defending her work to the committee.

Mitch Successfully Defended his Prelim

September 26, 2017

Mitch is now officially a Ph.D. candidate after presenting his preliminary research results and successfully defending his work to the committee.

New Group Members

September 2017

The Davis Research Group is pleased to welcome several new researchers and collaborators!

Naomi Deneke (Graduate student in Materials Science and Engineering) will be developing the normal adhesion testing apparatus to be used with FRET.

Amin Zareei (Ph.D. Student in Engineering Technology, Purdue Polytechnic Institute) will be working on LabView programming of custom mechanical testing equipment.

John Liu (Sophomore in Materials Science and Engineering) will be working with Amin on LabView coding.

Allison Chau (Junior in Materials Science and Engineering) will be working with Hyeyoung on characterizing the wrinkle to delamination transition of thin films.

Ricardo Rodriguez (Senior at Jefferson High School) will be working with Mitchell on thin film buckling mechanics.

Optical Microscopes Installed

June 30, 2017

The lab is coming together! Both Leica scopes arrived and were installed. Now to get down to the business of building up our characterization suite.

Next up: adhesion tester and installation of the micromechanical testing frame.

Interfacial Mechanophore in Silk-Epoxy Composites Article Published

May 22, 2017

Work conducted by researchers (including Dr. Davis) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently appeared in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces. This research focused on the installation of a mechanically-activated fluorescent probe molecule at the interface of a fiber/polymer composite. Upon deformation of a single fiber tensile specimen, the fluorescent intensity of the mechanophore increased, indicating the transfer of stress across the composite interface. The technique can be generalized to a host of industrially-relevant materials systems, leading to self-reporting interfacial damage sensors in bulk fiber reinforced composite systems.

The full article can be found here. 

A press release was also featured on the NIST website.

Wide-spread media coverage is summarized here.