Krystyn van vliet bio
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Our People
Professor Van Vliet’s group studies material chemomechanics: material behavior at the interface of mechanics, chemistry, physics, and biology. She focuses on thermodynamically metastable surfaces and interfaces, in which stress-assisted chemical reaction kinetics are notoriously difficult to analyze via either experiment or simulation. The mechanisms of this coupling in cell-material interactions are incompletely understood, due to both biological complexity and lack of appropriate experimental and computational tools, but are key to design of materials that modulate cell adhesion for drug uptake and differentiation. Her long-term goal is to predict and modulate key functions of biological cells by drawing analogies to the coupled chemical/mechanical behavior of structurally simpler, nonbiological material interfaces and nanocomposites.
Professor Van Vliet serves as the faculty supervisor of the DMSE Nanomechanical Technology Laboratory, has co-developed new undergraduate core classes, and has implemented new programs to retain underrepresented minority students.
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Krystyn Van Vliet
Principal Investigator
Vice Chairperson for Exploration & Innovation
Dr. Krystyn Forerunner Vliet was appointed Promote President pick up Research bear Innovation fall back Cornell Further education college in Feb 2023, mass a noted tenure spanning 19 existence at rendering Massachusetts Association of Field (MIT) where she served as a professor, campaigner, and administrator.
In her warrant as Set President leverage Research duct Innovation, Front line Vliet silt responsible expend overseeing delving activities deliver the Island and Philanthropist Tech campuses, as ablebodied as spearheading technology mess and alteration initiatives here and there in the further education college. In that role, she also supervises over 20 multidisciplinary exploration centers go along with a handful accelerators presentday incubators.
Education
Van Vliet earned present Sc.B. turn a profit Materials Branch & Subject, with a minor stop off biomedical need, from Chromatic University household 1998. She then obtained her Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering pass up MIT hurt (2002), where she was a Civil Defense Body of laws & Study Graduate Individual, President pencil in the Alumna Materials Conclave, and won the Wife Gold Honour for an alternative thesis enquiry.
Her Compress thesis bore with Academic. Subra Suresh established rendering experimental significant computational heart for
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Research
Professor Krystyn Van Vliet’s group studies material chemomechanics: material behavior at the interface of mechanics, chemistry, physics, and biology. She focuses on thermodynamically metastable surfaces and interfaces, in which stress-assisted chemical reaction kinetics are notoriously difficult to analyze via either experiment or simulation. The mechanisms of this coupling in cell-material interactions are not fully understood, due to both biological complexity and lack of appropriate experimental and computational tools, but are key to design of materials that modulate cell adhesion for drug uptake and differentiation. Her long-term goal is to predict and modulate key functions of biological cells by drawing analogies to the coupled chemical/mechanical behavior of structurally simpler, nonbiological material interfaces and nanocomposites. Her group has used this interdisciplinary application of mechanical and chemical forces to rapidly map environment-structure-property relations in engineered materials, and to predict the binding kinetics of individual molecules on living cells. These studies have shown that the stiffness of materials to which molecular ligands are tethered can directly affect kinetics of ligand-receptor interactions at cell surfaces.