Education

B.S., 2014, University of Southern Mississippi
Ph.D., 2019, University of Florida

Research Interests

High-performance composites
Composites gain much of their exceptional strength-to-weight performance from the synergistic combination of fiber reinforcement and polymer matrix, yet the resins used in aerospace composites have changed comparatively little in decades. The Sims group designs and synthesizes new thermosetting resins aimed at expanding the thermal and mechanical performance space available to structural composites. We are especially interested in developing applications of dynamic-covalent chemistry for composite materials that impart repairability/recyclability without compromising the material’s ultimate performance.

Nanostructured polymer materials
Block polymers self-assemble into a rich library of ordered nanoscale morphologies, but traditional design rules for controlling these structures focus on the relative lengths of linear blocks. Through modern controlled radical polymerization techniques, we study how architectural asymmetry can be manipulated to access unusual morphologies and phase spaces beyond the canonical regime found in linear diblock polymers.

Polymer mechanochemistry
Most controlled polymer synthesis is developed and optimized in dilute solution, a regime that is difficult and costly to translate to industrial scale. Our group develops reactive extrusion (REX) as a platform for performing polymerizations and other polymer transformations continuously, with minimal or no solvent, using the intense mixing and shear generated inside a twin-screw extruder. Owing to the ability to run extrusion processes continuously at rates beyond 1 kg/h, this work addresses the gap between laboratory-scale polymer design and scalable, industrially relevant manufacturing.