Graduate Students

Lei Zhu

Lei is about to graduate...

He studies molecular mobility and physical stability of amorphous organic solids. He worked on surface-enhanced crystallization of organic glasses. He determined the surface self diffusion of an organic glass for the first time. He also developed a novel method for measuring slow self diffusion in ultra viscous liquid by Raman microscopy and isotope labeling. As a hobby he has looked into vapor deposition to produce organic glasses with exceptional thermodynamic and kinetic stability.

Email: zhu@chem.wisc.edu

Caleb Brian

My research focuses on the surface diffusion of organic glasses of Indomethacin and Nifedipine. These compounds not only exhibit faster crystallization at the surface but also, as our research is finding out, exhibit much faster diffusion at the surface. I am also developing the light microscope technique we use to study diffusion at higher temperatures where atomic force microscopy would be to slow.

Email: cbrian@chem.wisc.edu

Mariko Hasebe

My research focuses on the stability and stabilization of amorphous solids of Indomethacin (IMC). I am studying a surprisingly fast mode of crystal growth at the surface of an organic glass, a phenomenon that has not been reported for inorganic glasses. My goal is to understand the mechanism of this surface-enhanced crystal growth using both microscopic and crystallographic techniques to gather details of these crystals to test leading theories of this phenomenon.

Email: hasebe@wisc.edu

Siwei Zhang

My research focuses on developing a method based on differential scanning calorimetry that can rapidly assess the thermodynamic stability of co-crystals. There is a strong interest from those in the drug development community to use co-crystals to improve pharmaceutical properties such as stability, solubility, and dissolution rate.

Email: szhang43@wisc.edu

Travis Powell

Travis studies the effects of polymers on the GC growth of OTP. He also has begun work on the effects of polymers on surface diffusion and surface-enhanced crystallization.

Email: cpowell@chem.wisc.edu

Post-Docs

Erica Gunn

My research focuses on three polymorphs of carbamazepine to understand how crystals grow in a glass. By comparing different crystal structures growing from the same amorphous phase, we can learn how density and other crystalline properties affect bulk and surface crystallization.

Email: emgunn@wisc.edu

Ting Cai

My research has focused on the crystallization of amorphous drugs, polymer additives as crystallization inhibitors, crystallization in polymorphic systems, and fast crystal growth in the bulk and surface of organic glasses.

Email: tcai@wisc.edu

Former Group Members

Shuang Chen: Associate Research Investigator, Abbott Laboratories

Tian Wu: Senior Scientist, Amgen

Hajime Ishida: Takeda Pharmaceutics, Japan

Jun Huang: Research Investigator, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Hanmi Xi: Senior Research Chemist, Merck

Jing Tao: Research Investigator, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Ye Sun: Post-doc, Chemical Engineering, MIT