Assistant Professor K艒nane Bay (left) works in the lab with Ava Crowley, a first year Chemical Engineering PhD student.One of the main reasons K艒nane Bay joined the CU 麻豆影院 faculty was the recent growth of faculty expertise in soft materials across both the Material Science and Engineering Program and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
鈥淭he expertise in soft materials at CU was a large motivator for me to join the faculty. There has been established rapport of support and collaboration inside this already strong area of research on campus, which was appealing to me,鈥� said Bay.
Bay arrived on campus in 2022 after working as a presidential postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University. She earned her master鈥檚 and PhD in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and completed her undergraduate degree in materials engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Bay鈥檚 soft-materials research portfolio explores a variety of applications and approaches but generally centers on combining tiny microorganisms with fabricated materials to achieve new or unique properties. She said one application of her work for defense would be designing a material with these types of organisms that could repair itself for use in protective equipment like a helmet, for example.
Bay added that while engineering fully synthetic materials with such capabilities remains a challenge, properties like regeneration are inherent to biofilm-forming bacteria, making them a likely path forward for the work. The challenge, she said, is in designing rules for these developing materials, such as how they bend or break. Doing so would allow researchers to better understand how to keep the beneficial aspects of the living organism without destroying needed parts when designing new materials.
It is a highly interdisciplinary research process that pulls from mechanics, engineering, microbiology, materials science, and polymer physics.
鈥淚t鈥檚 all part of this growing research trend into engineered living materials that can be used in a variety of fields like construction, water treatment or medicine as well,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here is a lot of interest from federal funding agencies like the Department of Defense and Department of Energy as well as private companies.鈥�
Bay is Native Hawaiian 鈥� she was born in Hawaii and spent her formative years on O驶ahu. Today she is deeply involved with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and is a fellow of their Lighting the Pathway to Faculty Careers for Natives in STEM program.
Her group鈥檚 name 鈥� Huli Materials Lab 鈥� includes the Hawaiian word that means to study, to change, and is a part of 鈥渒alo鈥� (taro plant) that is replanted into the ground to produce new plants.听
鈥淜alo is a highly sustainable food source and traditional food staple for K膩naka Maoli 鈥� the Native Hawaiian people,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ur group is inspired by the innate sustainability of the huli kalo cycle to develop sustainable polymeric materials.鈥� 听
Bay said her group is settling into their lab space in the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnical Building on East Campus听and are currently building out their capabilities.
鈥淲e have a lot of special equipment and actually we custom build a lot of what we need to test things like tensile strength of difficult to handle materials,鈥� she said. 鈥淔or that project specifically, I am working with a student through the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research to see if we can make a new version that is low-cost and portable.鈥澨�
