The polymers of the future will seamlessly integrate advanced functionalities, for use in wearable devices, bioelectronic “e-skin,” building materials that heat and cool, soft robotic human-machine interfaces and more. They will be electronic, thermal, optical, mechanical, and sustainable — on demand.
That future can’t come fast enough for new UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) Asst. Prof. Jie Xu.
“From coatings to recyclable composites, membranes, and wearables, polymers touch nearly every aspect of modern life,” she said. “Their vast design space, spanning chemistry, architecture, formulation, and processing, enables remarkable control over mechanical, electrical, optical, and sustainable functions. Yet this same complexity often slows discovery.”
Xu joined UChicago PME from Argonne National Laboratory this term, bringing both her expertise in designing advanced functional polymers and developing AI-driven robotic laboratories for building the materials of tomorrow. This promethean approach to design has already earned her such recognitions as being named one of America’s Greatest Disruptors by Newsweek and the MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 (Global).
“I’m most looking forward to collaborating with the inspiring colleagues and students at UChicago PME and across the university to think boldly, challenge ideas critically, and invent the future together,” Xu said.
Prof. Stuart Rowan, director of the Materials for Sustainability theme, said Xu is the perfect fit for PME’s interdisciplinary vision.
“Jie is a leading researcher in the field of autonomous laboratories for AI-guided polymer discovery, and we are thrilled to welcome her to the Materials theme at UChicago PME,” Rowan said. “She is currently establishing a new autonomous lab at UChicago, which will complement the one she previously developed at Argonne. This new facility will broaden the scope of her group’s capabilities in polymer-based research and impact all aspects of polymer and materials research in UChicago PME.”
Unlike traditional engineering programs siloed into rigid departments, UChicago PME is built around interdisciplinary themes focused on the most-pressing issues facing the modern world. When the needs are great, science needs to keep up pace, Xu said.
“The next frontier in polymer science lies in inventing new polymers for emerging applications in electronics, sustainable manufacturing, energy, climate resilience, human health, and space exploration, and in accelerating the entire discovery process,” she said. “My research aims to harness big data, precision molecular engineering, and inverse design to enable this transformation.”
To this end, in 2021 Xu led the development and launch of Polybot, a “self-driving laboratory” at Argonne National Laboratory where robots carry out experiments under the guidance of artificial intelligence.
“The idea of computers providing feedback to guide the design and automated execution of experiments dates back to at least the 1970s, but today’s systems are far more sophisticated,” Xu said. “Modern self-driving labs like Polybot integrate robotics with adaptive AI decision system that can autonomously plan, run, and interpret hundreds of experiments, while incorporating human insight and learning from each outcome to guide the next step in discovery.”
Polybot has already demonstrated its power by advancing the discovery of electronic functional polymers, including conductive, semiconductive, redox-active, and electrochromic materials. At UChicago PME, Xu aims to make AI-guided autonomous experimentation a dependable, broadly applicable engine for discovering advanced functional polymers — moving beyond one-off demonstrations to an interoperable digital research ecosystem. She will deploy this capability to bridge urgent real-world challenges and future breakthroughs, tackling plastic-waste circularity, sustainable energy materials, and human-machine interfaces to create technologies that benefit both science and society.
Xu compared materials discovery to exploring a vast universe.
“Traditional research lets us study only one small ‘galaxy’ at a time,” she said. “With AI and robotic labs as our research partners, we can venture into many new regions — testing ideas faster, uncovering hidden connections, and reducing bias to make science more reproducible and transparent.”
The goal is not to put machines in the driver’s seat, but to explore this new universe together.
“AI and robotic experimentation let us explore faster and uncover hidden patterns, but the most exciting discoveries still happen when human creativity and machine intelligence work together,” she said.