The Abbott group participates in a range of activities that seek to promote inclusion of underserved communities in science and engineering, and it supports professional development of graduate student and postdoc group members through mentorship of undergraduate students, high school students, K-12 teachers and outreach to the public.
May 2026
Soumita, Soumyamouli, Youlim, and Fiona walked together at the graduation ceremony!
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April 2026
Congratulations to Fiona Mukherjee for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Interfacial Phenomena In and Out-of-Equilibrium: Colloidal Principles for Microplastic Detection and Remediation"!
Congratulations to Soumita Maiti for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Investigating Dynamic Properties of Surfactants at Oil-Water Interfaces Using Liquid Crystalline Oils"!
Congratulations to Soumita Maiti for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Investigating Dynamic Properties of Surfactants at Oil-Water Interfaces Using Liquid Crystalline Oils"!
Congratulations, Soumita!
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Congratulations, Fiona!
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December 2025
Farewell party for Dr. Alexis de la Cotte!
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October 2025
Farewell party for Dr. Soon Mo Park - Congratulations on your new position in Korea!
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August 2025
Congratulations to Soumyamouli Pal for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Synthesis of Programmable Polymeric Morphologies by Liquid Crystal-Templated Vapor Phase Polymerization Techniques"!
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May 2025
Congratulations to Alice (Hanyu) Zhang for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Origami Algorithms and Palladium Actuators for Next Generation Microrobotics"!
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December 2024
Congratulations to Purvil Jani for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Sharing of Strain Between Soft Biological Assemblies and Synthetic Liquid Crystals"!
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Congratulations to Ayushi Tripathi for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Order Transition in Liquid Crystals Coupled to Heterogeneous Catalytic Processes"!
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October 2023
October 10th: Purvil taught Newton's third law of motion to 4th-5th grade girls at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) by making balloon rockets.
Congratulations to Cindy Qiu for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Context-Dependent Hydrophobic Interactions of α-Peptides"!
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July 2023
The Abbott group welcomes our new post-doc, Dr. Soon Mo Park!
June 2023
Congratulations to Youlim Ha for passing A-Exam on "Non-equilibrium Behaviors of Liquid Crystalline Soft Matter"!
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The Abbott group welcomes our new post-doc, Dr. Alexis de la Cotte, and REU student, Bryan Kim!
May 2023
Congratulations to Purvil Jani for passing A-Exam on "Sharing of Strain Between Soft Biological Assemblies and Synthetic Liquid Crystals"!
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April 2023
Congratulations to Huaizhe Yu for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Coupling Surface Reactions to Orientational Transitions of Liquid Crystals"!
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March 2023
March 8th: The Abbott group gather for the farewell party for Dr. Soumik Das. Congrats on your new position in India!
February 2023
February 8th: The Abbott group gather for the farewell lunch for Dr. Sangchul Roh. Congrats on your new position in Korea!
January 2023
January 14th: Purvil taught kids during a Family Science event at the Tompkins county public library about electrostatics. He showed them how certain materials can hold static charge and how charged objects interact with each other.
November 2022
Congratulations to Fiona Mukherjee for passing A-Exam on "Understanding Equilibrium and Dynamic Behaviors of Polymeric Microparticles at Liquid Crystalline Interfaces: Principles for Addressing the Microplastics Problem"!
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October 2022
Congratulations to Xin Wang for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Functional Soft Materials Designed Using Colloids and Interfaces At and Beyond Equilibrium"!
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October 13th: Purvil taught students at Windsor High School about the physics of projectile motion by building a small catapult. The students tested different variables (i.e. number of rubber bands used for storing potential energy, angle of release of projectile, etc.) to optimize the distance of the projectile.
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August 2022
Congratulations to Soumyamouli Pal for passing A-Exam on "Formation of Functional Polymeric Nanofibrous Membranes via Chemical Vapor Polymerization into Nematic Liquid Crystalline Films"!
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August 16th: Fiona and Soumita participated in a CCMR outreach event to demonstrate some of CCMR’s lending library kits to teachers and administrators from schools in upstate NY. This activity was a part of a recent grant from NY State to collaborate with two schools in the region and the Association for Manufacturing Technology to design curriculums to inspire and help students develop relevant STEM skills that are required to join local manufacturing companies.
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July 2022
Congratulations to Ayushi Tripathi for passing A-Exam on "Coupling photocatalysis to surface-driven ordering transitions in liquid crystals"!
July 22nd: Soumita participated in the GIAC STEM Day and helped kids between the ages of 5-12 to build their own kites to fly.
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July 19th: Youlim joined ChEGSA and CBE Women in hosting the CURIE/CATALYST Academies to assist high school students with demonstrative experiments related to principles of chemical engineering.
July 16th: Purvil taught kids at a Family Science Event about Bernoulli's principle and its role in kites, at the Tompkins County Public Library. He showed the kids how to make their own kites from simple household items.
July 15th: As part of the STEM Camp at Northeast Elementary School, Youlim and Xin led a one-hour activity session to introduce the concept of surface tension.
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July 14th: Nick gave a talk today entitled “The World of Liquid Crystalline Materials” to REU students on campus.
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Congratulations to newly elected board members for 2022-2023:
ChEGSA: Fiona as the Symposium Chair / Youlim as the Class Representative.
CBE Women: Soumita as the Treasurer / Youlim as the Vice Treasurer.
ChEGSA: Fiona as the Symposium Chair / Youlim as the Class Representative.
CBE Women: Soumita as the Treasurer / Youlim as the Vice Treasurer.
May 2022
Congratulations to Nanqi Bao for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Coupling of Chemical Reactions at Interfaces to Actuation of Materials"!
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April 2022
April 9th: At Expand Your Horizons at Cornell, Soumita, along with two other co-leaders of the workshop, led a discussion with ninth-grade girls on the geometries, curvatures, and elasticity, and how these simple concepts serve as the building block for the design of microscopic robots.
April 2nd: At Women's Outreach in Materials, Energy and Nanobiotechnology (W.O.M.E.N.) organized by CBE Women, Soumita served as the lab leader of the Parent-Student lab for which she designed a set of simple yet interesting experiments, delivered a short presentation to a group of ninth-grade girls and their parents (approximately 50 people in total), and assisted them with three hands-on experiments on surface tension.
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December 2021
Congratulations to Soumita Maiti for passing A-Exam on "Investigating dynamic properties of surfactants at oil-water interfaces using liquid crystalline oils"!
November 2021
November 8th: As part of CCMR outreach efforts, Fiona and Soumu conjure colors by mixing red cabbage juice with a variety of household liquids, including sprite and baking soda, and teach the kids about acids, bases, and the pH scale.
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November 2nd: As part of CCMR outreach efforts, the Abbott group engages with a group of elementary school students at Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC). Purvil and Ayushi teaches 7-9 year old kids about seed dispersal of plants and trees by showing how to make paper helicopters and parachutes that mimic the dispersal behavior of seeds.
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October 2021
October 31st: The Abbott group WON CBE Halloween Mixer this year! 🎃 We showcased the wizard-driven optical response of liquid crystals.
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October 26th: As part of CCMR outreach efforts, Soumita engages with a group of elementary school students at Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) by showing simple realizations of fundamental properties of polymers, including crosslinking and glass transition temperature.
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October 1st: The Abbott group gather for the farewell party for Yu and Michael. Good luck with your next chapters!
September 2021
Congratulations to Michael Tsuei for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Amphiphilic Assemblies at Liquid Crystal Interfaces"!
The Abbott group welcomes our new post-doc: Michael Reynolds
The Abbott group welcomes our new post-doc: Michael Reynolds
July 2021
The Abbott group hosts three teachers from NYC in the laboratory in July 2021. Nick and Nanqi present a lecture to the teachers on chemoresponsive liquid crystals and have them perform a set of experiments. Discussions between the teachers and the Abbott group focus on the development of experimental modules that can be used to illustrate concepts to high school students related to weak bonding and soft materials.
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Congratulations to Yu Yang for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Design of Functional Materials Based on Liquid Crystal-Polymer Composites"!
May 2021
Congratulations to Hector Fuster for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Liquid Crystalline Materials as Templates for Engineering van der Waals Interactions"!
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Congratulations to newly elected board members for 2021-2022:
ChEGSA: Youlim as the Secretary / Cindy as the Symposium Chair.
CBE Women: Soumita as the Treasurer.
ChEGSA: Youlim as the Secretary / Cindy as the Symposium Chair.
CBE Women: Soumita as the Treasurer.
March 2021
The Abbott group welcomes our new post-doc: Mingxin He
November 2020
The Abbott group welcomes our new graduate students: Youlim Ha and Fiona Mukherjee
October 2020
Hector participates in a virtual panel as part of this year's Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) national conference to talk about life in college. The panel was available to high school students nationwide and answered questions regarding what college is like, why to choose STEM as an academic discipline, how to afford college, and an open Q&A session.
June 2020
Congratulations to Cindy Qiu for passing A-Exam on "Context dependent hydrophobic interactions in chemically heterogeneous environments"!
May 2020
Congratulations to Xin for being elected as Secretary in CBE Women for 2020-2021.
March 2020
As part of CBE Women, Xin helps organizes the online event, 'Professional Development Workshop: Building your Personal Brand through Social Media', to help the department stay physically distant, but socially connected.
February 2020
As part of CCMR outreach efforts, Hector helps lead local elementary students through an experiment on electromagnets.
December 2019
Hector co-leads a presentation for the CCMR on 'The States of Matter' for local elementary school students.
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November 2019
Purvil works with primary school students at Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) to demonstrate how to identify unknown powders with chemical indicators (e.g. vinegar & iodine).
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The Abbott group welcomes our new graduate students: Soumita Maiti, Ayushi Tripathi, Soumyamouli Pal, and Siddharth Krishnan
September 2019
Hector teaches local K-12 students about biopolymers with the CCMR at the Family Science event at the Tompkins County Library.
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July 2019
Andreia, Eric, Hector, and Michael join CBE Women in hosting the Catalyst Academy and Curie Academy programs, where they worked with high school students to perform hands on activities such as the science behind making ice cream.
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Cindy, Karthik, Purvil, and Michael work with CCMR outreach to instruct high school students about diffraction.
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April 2019
Xin buddied with conference participants at the expanding your horizon (EYH) conference, acting as a role model to inspire girls to excel in science and math.
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Hector, in collaboration with CCMR outreach and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Ithaca College teaches elementary students about "nanomaterials in everyday life" at the Northside Community in Ithaca.
The Abbott Group Goes Hiking at Buttermilk Falls State Park
March 2019
Hector Fuster Works With the CCMR to teach elementary students about "circuits and conductivity" at the Tompkins County Library.
December 2018
Hector, Xin, and Hongseung collaborate with the CCMR to instruct elementary school students on "states of matter".
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November 2018
The Abbott Group Goes Bowling.
Karthik and Michael work with middle and high school teachers in workshops on light waves and solar cells in collaboration with the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR).
The Abbott group welcomes our new graduate students: Andreia Fenley, Purvil Jani, and Cindy Qiu
October 2018
Cindy goes to Harlem Promise Academy in Harlem, NYC to instruct high school students on "atomic bonding" and works with NYC public school teachers in preparing various laboratory experiments.
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August 2018
The Abbott group moves to Cornell University from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
