The Stephanie H. Shaw Scholarship recognizes a female graduate student in the Polymer Program for their scholarly activities as well as community contributions. This year, Sanyukta Patil, from the Burke research lab, has received this honor.

In the lab, Sanyukta has been addressing the synthesis and structure-property relationships of silk fibroin biomaterials to impart new functional properties to the biopolymer. Silk fibroin is a challenging material to work with. The protein tends to self-assemble in solution, which makes both its synthetic modification and characterization difficult. Her perseverance and creativity helped her succeed through various obstacles during her PhD, including joining lab during the COVID pandemic with limited ability to access labs and learn from more senior students.

Her research has led to six publications, three as lead author, and an application for a full patent, “brush-like polymers grown from silk fibroin surface”. She has shared her research with four presentations at American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) conferences, received the Women in Chemical Engineering award by AIChE, and received first prize for a graduate student poster from the College of Engineering.

Her community contributions include, the Holster Scholar Honors Undergraduate Mentor Program, active membership with the John Loff Leadership Academy, and Young Scholars Senior Summit Mentorship.

Sanyukta has been an outstanding member of the UConn community, a key researcher in her lab, and an ideal selection for the Stephanie H. Shaw Scholarship.