April 3, 2015

Alshakim Nelson to join faculty

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Alshakim Nelson will be joining the Department as Assistant Professor of Chemistry for the 2015-16 academic year. Dr. Nelson completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry at Pomona College in 1999. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2004, where he studied carbohydrate-containing polymers and macrocycles with Professor J. Fraser Stoddart. He was then an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology working for Professor Robert Grubbs on olefin metathesis catalysts for the formation of supramolecular ensembles. Dr. Nelson joined IBM Almaden Research Center as a Research Staff Member in 2005, where he focused on synthesizing building blocks that enable large area nanomanufacturing via self-assembly. His research interests also include silicon-based polymers for lithographic applications, magnetic nanoparticles, directed self-assembly of nanoparticles, and hydrogen bonding block copolymers. Dr. Nelson has over 40 publications and 11 issued patents, and in 2011 he was designated as an IBM Master Inventor. In 2012, he became manager of the Nanomaterials Group, which includes the Synthetic Development Lab.

Dr. Nelson will begin his research program at the University of Washington in September 2015. His research will focus on the synthesis, characterization, and patterning of polymeric and supramolecular materials for the bio-interface.

For more information about Dr. Nelson and his research, please contact him directly via email.