Welcome to the Van Lehn Group!
We use molecular simulations and data-centric methods to characterize, predict, and engineer the behavior of synthetic and biological soft materials. We study a range of soft materials, including nanoparticles, peptides, lipid membranes, liquid crystals, and polymers, for applications relevant to human health, sustainability, and energy. Our research is purely computational and is complemented by close collaborations with a variety of experimental groups. Current research directions include (1) designing synthetic materials to interact with biological systems for applications in drug delivery and biosensing, (2) screening solvents for polymer dissolution and depolymerization for applications in plastics recycling and biomass valorization, (3) uncovering rules governing interactions with lipid membranes for drug delivery and antimicrobial applications, and (4) understanding structure in complex liquid environments for applications in biomaterials design, energy storage, and catalysis.
Lisa defends their PhD!
Many congratulations to Dr. Lisa Je for defending their PhD! Their thesis was entitled: “Integrating Molecular Dynamics, Topological Data Analysis, and Experiments to Identify Ionic Liquid Nanostructures.” Lisa, who was co-advised by Prof. Victor Zavala, …
September 2, 2025Ali awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
Ali was recently announced as a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Congratulations to the well-deserved award, Ali!
June 13, 2025GLBRC spotlight on solvent selection work
Amy’s paper on using Bayesian expeirmental design to select green solvent mixtures for bioproducts separations was recently featured in an article by GLBRC. Read about it more at the link below!
March 31, 2025Pan defends his PhD!
Congratulations to Dr. Panzheng Zhou for successfully defending his PhD! His thesis is titled: “Computational Models for Dissolution-based Plastic Recycling.” Pan will be starting a new position as a Research Scientist at Meta – we …
March 11, 2025- More News