John Colson was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, where he developed interests in both science and musical performance—piano and percussion. He completed a double major in chemistry and music at the University of Oklahoma, where he gained his first experience as a synthetic organic chemist in Professor Ronald Halterman’s laboratory. John also was selected for the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, where he investigated ring-opening polymerizations with Dr. Jim Hedrick. John graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BS in chemistry, summa cum laude, in 2009 and began his graduate education in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. There, John was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the NSF and was one of Professor William Dichtel’s first graduate students. John’s graduate research made major contributions to the synthesis of two-dimensional polymers, often known as covalent organic frameworks (COFs). Most notably, his seminal work on growing 2-D COFs as thin films using single-layer graphene as a template, published in Science, represented a major step forward for the field. His recent review of the field, published in Nature Chemistry, is the contemporary authority on 2-D polymerization. Both have been recognized as “Highly Cited Papers” by Thompson Reuters, placing them in the top 1% of all papers published in the polymer field in their respective publication years. As a graduate student, John was also selected as a member of the United States delegation to the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in July 2013.
Upon completing his PhD, John joined the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago as a joint postdoctoral scholar in Professor Matthew Tirrell and Professor Paul Nealey’s group. There he is now studying new polymeric materials with an eye toward energy storage devices. Outside of his laboratory pursuits, John recently joined the Associates program at the University of Chicago Innovation Fund, a $20 million fund dedicated to seed and early-stage investment in promising Chicago-area technologies and start-up companies. John is also an avid marathoner with a personal best time faster than three hours. One of his proudest moments is when he crossed the finish line at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
John's research employs directed self-assembly to fabricate polyelectrolyte complexes with long-range order with an eye toward energy storage devices.
The Role of Water Volume Fraction on Water Adsorption in Anion Exchange Membranes
Gervasio Zaldivar, Ruilin Dong, Joan M Montes de Oca, Ge Sun, Riccardo Alessandri, Christopher G Arges, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Juan J de Pablo, Macromolecules, 2025
Role of Crosslinking and Backbone Segmental Dynamics on Ion Transport in Hydrated Anion-Conducting Polyelectrolytes
Zhongyang Wang, Kai Wang, Christopher Eom, Yuxi Chen, Ge Sun, Mincheol Kim, Joan M Montes de Oca, Dongyue Liang, Kushal Bagchi, Shrayesh N Patel, Juan J de Pablo, Paul F Nealey, Advanced Functional Materials, 2025
IEC-Independent Coupling between Water Uptake and Ionic Conductivity in Anion-Conducting Polymer Films
Joan M Montes de Oca, Ruilin Dong, Gervasio Zaldivar, Ge Sun, Zhongyang Wang, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Juan J de Pablo, Macromolecules, 2025
Water-mediated ion transport in an anion exchange membrane
Zhongyang Wang, Ge Sun, Nicholas HC Lewis, Mrinmay Mandal, Abhishek Sharma, Mincheol Kim, Joan M Montes de Oca, Kai Wang, Aaron Taggart, Alex B Martinson, Paul A Kohl, Andrei Tokmakoff, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Juan J de Pablo. Nature Communications. 2025.
Directed self-assembly of block copolymer films on atomically-thin graphene chemical patterns
Chang, TH; Xiong, SS; Jacobberger, RM; Mikael, S; Suh, HS; Liu, CC; Geng, DL; Wang, XD; Arnold, MS; Ma, ZQ; Nealey, PF. Directed self-assembly of block copolymer films on atomically-thin graphene chemical patterns. Scientific Reports. 2016. Vol. 6, Pg. 31407.
Directed self-assembly of high-chi block copolymer for nano fabrication of bit patterned media via s
Xiong, S. S. Chapuis, Y. A. Wan, L. Gao, H. Li, X. Ruiz, R. Nealey, P. F.. Directed self-assembly of high-chi block copolymer for nano fabrication of bit patterned media via s. Nanotechnology. 2016. Vol. 27, Pg. 415601.
Directed Self-Assembly of Triblock Copolymer on Chemical Patterns for Sub-10-nm Nanofabrication via
Xiong, SS; Wan, L; Ishida, Y; Chapuis, YA; Craig, GSW; Ruiz, R; Nealey, PF. Directed Self-Assembly of Triblock Copolymer on Chemical Patterns for Sub-10-nm Nanofabrication via. ACS Nano. 2016. Vol. 10, Pg. 7855–7865.
Roadmap on optical metamaterials
Urbas, A. M. Jacob, Z. Dal Negro, L. Engheta, N. Boardman, A. D. Egan, P. Khanikaev, A. B. Menon, V. Ferrera, M. Kinsey, N. DeVault, C. Kim, J. Shalaev, V. Boltasseva, A. Valentine, J. Pfeiffer, C. Grbic, A. Narimanov, E. Zhu, L. X. Fan, S. H. Alu, A. Poutrina, E. Litchinitser, N. M. Noginov, M. A. MacDonald, K. F. Plum, E. Liu, X. Y. Nealey, P. F. Kagan, C. R. Murray, C. B. Pawlak, D. A. Smolyaninov, I. I. Smolyaninova, V. N. Chanda, D.. Roadmap on optical metamaterials. Journal of Optics. Vol. 18, Pg. 093005.
Post-directed-self-assembly membrane fabrication for in situ analysis of block copolymer structures
J Ren, L E Ocola, R Divan, D A Czaplewski, T Segal-Peretz, S Xiong, R J Kline, C G Arges and P F Nealey. Post-directed-self-assembly membrane fabrication for in situ analysis of block copolymer structures. Nanotechnology. 2016. Vol. 27, Pg. 435303.