UConn Ph.D. alumni, John Toribio from the IMS Polymer Program, and Kyle Mahoney from Kinesiology, are the co-founders of Zemi Labs Inc. Zemi is revolutionizing hi-tech wearables by creating more comfortable products with greater health monitoring capabilities than traditional devices.

After winning the UConn’s 2024 Innovation Quest competition, they continue to develop and grow their products and company. They secured their first paid pilot, continue to build startup funding, gain more recognition, and now have nine prototype shirts designed to monitor different areas of the upper body.

Dr. Toribio and Mahoney have been setting an example of success for UConn’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programs.

Inspired by Alpha-Keratins found in animal hair and nails, the Yao Lin research lab has been developing stronger synthetic polypeptides. This offers a new way of creating thermally robust, responsive bioinspired materials. The group has been working in collaboration with Jianjun Cheng (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and conducting scattering experiments using the CMS beamline (11-BM) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY. The research is featured on the Brookhaven National Laboratory website.

Read the recent publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Learn more about Yao Lin’s research.

The Yi Zhang research group paper, “Liquid-based encapsulation for implantable bioelectronics across broad pH environments”, was published in Nature Communications, in January, 2025.  

Wearable and implantable bioelectronics that interface with various biological tissues and environments have a wide range of applications, including pain management, electrophysiological mapping and stimulation of cardiac tissue, and gastrointestinal monitoring and modulation. These biological tissues and environments span a broad pH range, from the highly acidic conditions in the gastrointestinal system (as low as pH 1.5) to the alkaline environment of chronic wounds (up to pH 8.9). The encapsulation of these systems, however, presents a major challenge, as such devices require superior barrier performance against water and ion penetration in challenging pH environments while also maintaining flexibility and stretchability to match the physical properties of the surrounding tissue. Current encapsulation materials are often limited to near-neutral pH conditions, restricting their application range. Here, Yi Zhang lab from the Institute of Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering Department reports a liquid-based encapsulation approach that achieves year-long encapsulation performance for wireless optoelectronics under highly acidic conditions (pH 1.5–4.5). This approach also achieves high optical transparency, stretchability, and mechanical durability. This liquid-based encapsulation strategy is broadly applicable to a range of implantable bioelectronics, particularly in challenging acidic or alkaline conditions.

Congratulations to first co-authors, Xiaoting Xue and Xincheng Zhang, of the Zhang Research Group.

After completing his Master’s degree at Akron University, Jiuzhou joined the UConn Polymer Ph.D. Program. Under the advisement of Professor Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, he explored the world of polymer coatings, leading to his dissertation: “Layer-by-layer Assembled Polamide for Endogenous Redox-Active Interference Molecules Rejection”.

Jiuzhou returned home in China to begin a research and development position in the petroleum industry.

Congratulations Jiuzhao!

Professors Greg A. Sotzing and Pritish S. Aklujkar have been working with high temperature dielectrics used in high energy density capacitors. They are developing a new generation of all-organic polymer dielectric capacitors that can withstand high temperature conditions, eliminating the need for coolant systems. These capacitors will have a number of applications, including electric-vehicle charging stations and Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS) used to catapult jets from aircraft carriers. Their paper, “Chromogenic Identification of Breakdown” was published in Nature Materials, February, 2, 2024. Visit Nature Materials to read the complete article.

The IMS Polymer Program welcomed two incoming Ph.D. students this year, Vishwa Suthar and Hoang-Phuc Pham. Originally from western India, Vishwa Suthar came to the United States to complete her Master of Science degree at Pittsburg State University.  She joined the UConn Polymer Ph.D. Program beginning the Fall 2023 session. Originally from Vietnam, Hoang-Phuc Pham completed both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He joined the UConn Polymer Ph.D. Program beginning the Spring 2024 session.

After completing his BS and MS in Taiwan, Chung-Hao Liu came to the US to join UConn’s Polymer Ph.D. Program.  He worked under the guidance of Prof. Mu-Ping Nieh to learn the principles of self-assembly and  structural characterization using neutron, x-ray, and light scattering.  Chung-Hao was a productive student in scientific output with 3 lead-author, and 14 coauthored publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals (including Journal of American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Functional Materials, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Nanoscale, Macromolecules, ACS Macro Letters, etc.) and more to come.

Reflecting on his experience at UConn, Chung-Hao says he loved the collaborative nature of the Institute of Materials Science with both faculty and students. The interdisciplinary research projects allowed him to speak with chemists and engineers from various backgrounds. He also noted that faculty were always open to providing help whenever he encountered problems.  Chung-Hao also enjoyed freedom in research the pursuit of research projects without being micromanaged.

Chung-Hao completed his dissertation defense, “Encapsulation and Polymerization in the Fluid Phase of a Well-Defined Bicellar Template,” in spring 2023 and has started his new journey as a postdoctoral scientist in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, in July 2023.