Rachel A. Letteri

Bio

Rachel A. Letteri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering.  After obtaining a B.S. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, she completed a Ph.D. in Polymer Science & Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst under the direction of Professors Todd Emrick and Ryan Hayward.  She then conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Karen Wooley in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University from 2016-2018.  Her research interests include materials involving functional polymers, peptides, and interfacial assemblies with applications in medicine and engineering, among others.  Rachel also enjoys sharing science and engineering with others through education and outreach.

Lab overview

The Letteri group is engineering materials that feature hierarchical structure and dynamic mechanical properties, and enable productive interactions with living systems.  Intertwining the tunability and versatility of synthetic polymers with the sequence-dependent interactions and biological activity of peptides offers tremendous opportunities for the generation of materials well-suited to address central challenges in medicine and engineering.