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Patel Group

Andrea Diaz

Andrea was born in Downey, California and was raised in Melrose Park, Illinois. She attended the University of Iowa where she received her B.S.E in Chemical Engineering. Throughout her freshman - junior years at the University of Iowa she worked on finding inhibitors of RAD52 repair protein in mutated BRACA1 and BRACA2 cells under the supervision of Prof. Maria Spies and mentorship of Sarah Hengel, PhD. Andrea interned at the Rogers Corporation and The Clorox Company during her sophomore and junior year summers, respectively. During her senior year she joined Prof. Tonya Peeples' lab where she identified sugars in environmental biofilms and quantified the degradation of Atrazine from pseudomonas bacteria cells. Upon graduation from the University of Iowa Andrea moved to the Bay Area to work fulltime for The Clorox Company as an R&D Scientist working on water filtration and sustainable packaging materials. She then moved back to the Chicago Suburbs to work for Honeywell UOP as a Chemical Engineer where she worked on engineering design of petrochemical and refinery processes. After working in Oil and Gas, Andrea transitioned to Pharmaceuticals as a project and validation engineer for Fresenius Kabi focusing on design and implementation of new drugs. Andrea joined the PME Fall of 2021, and currently works under the supervision of Prof. Shrayesh Patel.

Andrea's current research focuses on sustainable plastics, focusing on upcycling methods. 

Multipotent Elastomers via Tempering of Phase-Separated Dynamic Covalent Networks

Nicholas R Boynton, Camaryn M Bennett, Trevor D Hagan, Gabrielle R Solymosy, Charlie A Lindberg, Naomi A Schaller, Stephanie L Vivod, Shrayesh N Patel, Stuart J Rowan. ACS Macro Lett. (2025), 14, 11, 1728–1734. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.5c00653.

Spin Glass Behavior and Giant Magnetoresistance via Aliovalent Fe/Ni Alloying in Amorphous Tetrathiafulvalene-Tetrathiolate Coordination Polymers

Chen-Yu Lien, Jie-Hao Chen, Anna O Schouten, Grant R Wilkinson, Di Wang, Jan Hofmann, Maia E Czaikowski, Barbara Lavina, Alexander S Filatov, Karena W Chapman, Andrew P Higginbotham, Dmitri V Talapin, David A Mazziotti, Henry S La Pierre, Shrayesh N Patel, John S Anderson. J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2025), 147, 43, 39590–39598. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c12985.

Pre-synthetic redox control of structure and properties in copper TTFtt coordination polymers

Ningxian Jiang, Saranya Velliyarat, Chen-Yu Lien, Ha L Nguyen, Jan Hofmann, Arun Ramanathan, Alexander S Filatov, Henry Storms La Pierre, Shrayesh Patel, Jie-Hao Chen, Karena Chapman, Jan-Niklas Boyn, John S Anderson. Chem. Sci., (2025), 16, 19304-19316. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5SC03070F.

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 58 (18), 9972-9982. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.5c01256.

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. Adv. Funct. Mater. (2025): e14589. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202514589.

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, 58 (12), 6134-6148. DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.5c00934.

Study of self-assembly behavior and ionic conductivity of conjugated liquid crystals with T-shaped facial-polyphilic structure

Ziwei Liu, Yangyang Sun, Ban Xuan Dong, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Fernando A Escobedo, Christopher K Ober. Sci. Adv. 11, eadt8303 (2025). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adt8303.

Should I stay or should I flow? An exploration of phase-separated metallosupramolecular liquid crystal polymers

Charlie A Lindberg, Alice E Roberson, Elina Ghimire, Jerald E Hertzog, Nicholas R Boynton, Guancen Liu, Deborah K Schneiderman, Shrayesh N Patel, Stuart J Rowan. Chem. Eur. J., 31: e202404672. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202404672.

Enhanced Ion Transport and Molecular Packing Stability in Asymmetric 2D Nanostructured π‐Conjugated Thieno [3, 2‐b] Thiophene‐Based Liquid Crystal

Chaoqiuyu Wang, Yangyang Sun, Zhongyang Wang, Wen Chen, Danya Liu, Joseph Strzalka, Shrayesh N Patel, Paul F Nealey, Christopher K Ober, Fernando A Escobedo. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2025, 35, 2423541. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202423541.

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. Nat. Commun. 16, 1099 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55621-z.

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