Alumni

Ethan grew up in California and spent most of his childhood in the great NorCal town known as Stockton (perhaps you've driven through it on interstate 5). As the great recession hit, Ethan enrolled in Harvey Mudd College and graduated four years later with a B.S. in Engineering. During his undergrad, he did research on nanocomposite membranes with Prof Nancy Lape and attended a conference in a very rural part of New Hampshire. At said conference, he learned about block copolymer microphase separation and fell in love with the self-assembled ordered network structures they can form. After Mudd and a brief stunt as a semiconductor engineer, Ethan ended up studying these structures at Cornell under the direction of Profs Lara Estroff and Uli Wiesner, where he made and characterized very large single crystalline self-assembled double gyroids. After the PhD in Materials Science was granted in 2018, he started an ultra-co-advised postdoc under 3 profs: Rachel Segalman, Javier Read de Alaniz, and Chris Bates at UC Santa Barbara with the intention of exploring structure-property relationships in polymeric ionic liquids. He's happy to be back in Cali (as only his friends on the east coast call it) because he needs sunlight to function. When Ethan isn't at a computer or fume hood, he's probably swimming (yay outdoor pools!), on a day hike or backpacking trip, or learning how to surf.

Dr. Jaejun Lee

Born in April 1984 in a small town, Suncheon, located in southern South Korea. At age 19, I moved to Seoul to enjoy college life at Hanyang University. The fancy Korean name of material science and engineering major, directly translated to new material engineering, brought me to study this major for more than 10+ years. If someone is wondering why I spent 7 years to finish my bachelor degree, spending 2 years and 2 months for an alternative military service would be an answer. I earned MS degree in materials science and engineering in KAIST, Daejeon and started another journey to study polymers in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the middle of corn fields. I finally completed my Ph.D. under supervision of Nancy Sottos working with nice lab mates and collaborators. 

A reason to continue career as a postdoc : curiosity in stimulus-responsive materials

My interests : playing basketball, soccer and golf

First place visit in Santa Barbara : Saturday Fisherman’s market

Favorite burger place in Santa Barbara : Habit burger

Favorite golf course in Santa Barbara : Glen Annie golf course

The moment decided to start surf in the near future : when I met Javier carrying a surf board

DR. HUI NIE

Hui was born and grew up in Hubei province-“the land of fish and rice” in China. At 2009, she travelled to the north part of China and has her PhD in Jilin University with Prof. Sean Xiao-An Zhang and Prof. Minjie Li. For her PhD study, she works on several projects such as self-assembly of metal-organic coordination polymers and carbon dots. After received her degree at 2015, she moved to the “orange” country Netherlands for postdoc study with Prof. Jos Paulusse in University of Twente and Prof. Katerina Dohnalová in University of Amsterdam. During her two years happy journey there, she worked on bright silicon quantum dots. Then she moved to sunny Santa Barbara, California and now works with Prof. Javier Read de Alaniz on photoswitches for polymerized ionic liquid.

Emre was born in southern Illinois before moving to and spending nearly 7 years on the tropical island of Guam. He returned back to Illinois, settling in the windy city of Chicago only to move back to the cornfields of Illinois for undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  It was here he developed his passion for chemistry and the Japanese language.  Emre went on to put chemistry on the backburner his junior year and left to study abroad in the land of the rising sun.  In addition to vastly improving his Japanese skills, he left with newfound appreciation for sushi and quality ramen.  After a return back to Illinois and a fruitful year of research with Professor Jeffrey Moore his senior of college, Emre returned to Japan as a visiting intern at the University of Tokyo again experiencing the joys of indescribably tasty seafood.  Emre went on to work for the Dow Chemical Company before making the move to sunny southern California ecstatic to be working with Professors Craig Hawker and Javier Read de Alaniz as an NSF graduate fellow.  When Emre isn’t in lab, he enjoys playing golf, cruising on his skateboard, eating seafood, and kicking it with good friends.

Jose was born in Denver, Colorado on a cold fall night in November. Growing up he didn’t do what people typically think Coloradans do: ski or snowboard. Instead he spent his days reading nerdy books or playing outside with his friends and his summers going to Mexico. In high school he was the captain of the soccer team, was soooo popular he won homecoming king and prom king. Papa Gates (Bill Gates) realized how popular he was (and saw that he was kind of smart) so he awarded Jose a ten year full ride scholarship: The Gates Millennium Scholarship. Tired of the cold winters and hot summers in Colorado, he left to Santa Barbara to bask in the sun and tan on the beach. He joined Dr. Read de Alaniz’s lab after getting into the UCSB Mcnair scholars program. Shortly after joining the lab, he decided he wanted to see the world and sailed around the globe visiting 14 countries in 10 months. He’s currently trying to finish his undergrad degree in biology, not chemistry, but when he’s not in lab or in school, he enjoys going on random photoshoots with friends, drawing, not texting people back, and being on Twitter. 

Puck grew up in hot and humid Malaysia, where she spent her days fending off monkeys and kimono dragons. For high school her parents moved to sunny NorCal where she spent her days either playing waterpolo, basketball, or running track. She is currently pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Biology with a minor in Professional Writing for Science Communication. She works in Dr. Read de Alaniz’s lab with Allison Abdilla, mainly trying not to blow things up. Along with the lab, on her free time Puck competes for the Division 1 Track and Field team for UCSB as a high jumper/heptathlete. She loves all animals (except cats which are just evil), loves the outdoors, and loves her family.

Sara was born in sunny Santa Clara, California before moving to Granite Bay, California. In Granite Bay Sara discovered two very important things about herself: her love for Chemistry and how much she didn’t want to live in Granite Bay. So off she went to sunny Santa Barbara in hopes of learning to surf and earning her B.S. in Biochemistry, however only one of those things (a degree) seems to be in her near future. Upon completion of her undergraduate degree Sara hopes to attend graduate school in order to pursue her PhD in Chemistry. When not conducting research or studying Sara enjoys painting, hot yoga and baking as many treats for her friends as possible!

Shay was born in the rural country of Vietnam but she moved to a slightly less rural state of California after she swam across the Pacific Ocean. Some say she’s still swimming to this day. When she was twelve, she moved to Florida with her family because California wasn’t hot enough… or crazy enough… or had enough roaches. Thanks to the heat, she spent her time indoor doing chemistry and math problems, in which she won some national awards. Bill Gates (papi Gates as she calls him) was kind enough to give her a ten-year full-ride to any institution. Ironically, she still uses a MacBook. She took the offer and fled to Santa Barbara, where she graduated with a bachelor degree in Biochemistry. She joined Dr. Javier Read de Alaniz’s lab to skip some ochem classes. When she is not in the lab, she likes to sail, surf, paint, and play pool. She likes everything about cars except actually driving them. Also, before today she has never heard of a potato.

Shelby was born and raised in Thousand Oaks, home of Jungleland, one of Southern California’s first theme parks. However, due to a gruesome mauling (but mainly the opening of Disneyland), Jungleland closed its doors. Growing up in a city with such a dark history was rough on young Shelby, so she finally left for sunny Santa Barbara to eventually graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. However, a girl can leave Jungleland, but Jungleland never leaves a girl. So in an attempt to reconnect with her feral roots, Shelby sought out adventure in the Outback, the Peruvian Amazon, and the Galapagos Islands. But in all of her journeys, nothing has brought her closer to the wild and unruly environment of Jungleland than the Read de Alaniz group. When not in lab, Shelby likes to paint, hike, sail, and go to concerts in garages. Her friends say that she never texts back, has a bad immune system, and hates feet. Shelby has no comment on these charges.

Born and raised Seal Beach, California, Kate grew up loving food, the outdoors, and sunshine. Living on the beautiful golden coast for the first 18 years of her life, aided in the development of Kate’s zest for life. After attending San Diego State University for 2 years, she transferred to UCSB in hopes to challenge herself academically. The jump from one beach city to the next ended up being the most rewarding experience, especially after she joined Javier’s group. In Kate’s 2.5 years in Santa Barbara she earned a B.S. in Chemistry, studied while admiring the Pacific Ocean, and met some great people along the way. With guidance from her mentors, Kyle and Javier, her work on photochromic materials was enhanced after receiving the Undergraduate Research and Creative Studies Grant from UCSB. Outside of chemistry, Kate enjoys backpacking, hiking, dancing, eating, and enjoying quality time with friends. She also volunteer’s her time as a dental assistance at Goleta Neighborhood Dental Clinic, and works as an on-campus chemistry tutor for CLAS. After finishing her degree at UCSB, Kate sadly had to leave beautiful Santa Barbara in order to earn her Doctorate in Dental Surgery.