Grand challenges in polymer science & soft matter: Wooley's emphasis on strategies to afford natural product-based polymer materials with consideration of the end game
Dr. Karen Wooley, W. T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry, University Distinguished Professor, Presidential Impact Fellow, Texas A&M University
Karen Wooley holds the W. T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry and is a University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. She also has joint appointments in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering. Wooley studied at Oregon State University (B.S., 1988) and Cornell University (Ph.D., 1993). As an undergraduate, she engaged in natural product total synthesis research in the laboratory of Steven J. Gould (deceased), and she then shifted to macromolecular chemistry with a focus on the synthesis and characterization of dendritic and hyperbranched polymers during Ph.D. studies under the direction of Jean M. J. Fréchet. The first sixteen years of her independent academic career were spent at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and she then relocated to Texas A&M University in July 2009. In addition to her academic positions, she is a co-founder and President of Sugar Plastics, LLC, and Chief Technology Officer of Teysha Technologies, Ltd. Research interests include the synthesis and characterization of degradable polymers derived from natural products, unique macromolecular architectures, complex polymer assemblies, and well-defined nanostructured materials. She has designed synthetic strategies to harness the rich compositional, regiochemical and stereochemical complexity of natural products for the construction of hydrolytically-degradable polymers, which have impact toward sustainability, reduction of reliance on petrochemicals, and production of biologically-beneficial and environmentally-benign natural products upon degradation – these materials are expected to impact the global issue of plastic pollution and address challenges resulting from climate change. Recent awards include election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015), National Academy of Inventors (2019), American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2020), and National Academy of Sciences (2020); she was also named as the 2021 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Professor of the Year.
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