EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Architecture-Driven Tolerant Soft Polymer Systems from Heterogeneous Waste Feedstocks

This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an Assistant Professor and training for an undergraduate student at Troy University. This work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Bryan S. Beckingham at Auburn University. Through the fellowship, the PI will investigate how the internal architecture of soft polymer materials affects water storage and controlled release under drought, soil salinity, mechanical loading, and repeated drying. The project combines polymer science, materials engineering, and transport phenomena to examine how material architecture influences water transport, swelling, and mechanical stability in the soft polymer systems produced from heterogeneous recycled feedstocks. The resulting knowledge may support the development of water-management materials for agriculture, reforestation, and ecosystem restoration while creating new uses for post-consumer waste. The fellowship will strengthen undergraduate research opportunities and contribute to STEM workforce development. This project will establish quantitative relationships among material architecture, water transport, swelling, and mechanical stability in scaffold-confined soft polymer systems produced from heterogeneous recycled feedstocks. The intellectual contribution will be a structure-based framework for identifying transitions between stable water retention, restricted swelling, structural collapse, and transport-limited release under load, salinity, and cyclic drying. The research will combine material preparation, structural and mechanical characterization, water-uptake and release measurements, permeability testing, and analysis using measurable dimensionless parameters. The fellowship will advance the PI’s research capability in soft polymer materials and establish new experimental protocols at Troy University. These activities will support undergraduate research training, expand the university’s sustainable materials research, strengthen the partnership with Auburn University, and contribute to workforce development in materials science and engineering. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows (ERF), which supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.