People Type: Scholar

Prof. Esser-Kahn grew up in suburban Detroit. He studied at the California Institute of Technology and The University of California at Berkeley. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He launched his career at the University of Irvine in the Chemistry Department where he worked from 2011 until 2017. Joining the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) in the same year, he has pursued many areas of research.

His primary area of research focuses on immunoengineering and improving immune responses in vaccination. Here, his group works on improving innate immune responses through better understanding immune responses and finding new ways to manipulate and improve responses. His secondary area of research focuses on adaptive materials. Here, his group works on developing materials that mimic the human body in their ability to respond and adapt to an external environment – providing force-mediated adaptation.

Junhong Chen is currently a Crown Family Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and lead water strategist at Argonne National Laboratory.

Prior to coming to Chicago, Prof. Chen served as a program director for the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) program of the US National Science Foundation (NSF).  He also served as a co-chair of the NSF-wide ERC Working Group to design the ERC Planning Grants program and the Gen-4 ERC program.  In addition, Chen was a representative from the Engineering Directorate serving on the NSF-wide Working Groups for NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) and NSF Research Traineeship (NRT).

Prior to joining NSF in May 2017, he was a regent scholar of the University of Wisconsin System, a Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and an Excellence in Engineering Faculty Fellow in Nanotechnology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). He served as the director of NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) on Water Equipment & Policy (WEP) for six years.  He founded NanoAffix Science LLC to commercialize real-time water sensors based on 2D nanomaterials.

Chen received his PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Minnesota in 2002 and was a postdoctoral scholar in chemical engineering at California Institute of Technology from 2002 to 2003.  Chen is an elected fellow of National Academy of Inventors and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is a recipient of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM) Medal.  His start-up company, NanoAffix, is a recipient of the 2016 Wisconsin Innovation Award.

Chibueze Amanchukwu is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and holds a joint appointment at Argonne National Laboratory.

His research is focused on enabling long duration electrical (batteries) and chemical energy storage for a sustainable energy future. His team is especially interested in modifying electrolyte and ion solvation behavior to control electrochemical processes occurring in batteries and electrocatalytic transformations such as carbon dioxide capture and conversion. They couple data science, computation, synthesis, and characterization to holistically understand ion transport in electrolytes and control interfacial reactions for efficient and cheap long duration storage.

His work has been recognized with the NSF CAREER Award, DOE Early Career Award, ECS-Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship, CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar Award, and the 3M Nontenured Faculty Award. He obtained his PhD in chemical engineering as a NDSEG Fellow at MIT and was a TomKat Center Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University.

Interested in joining the Amanchukwu Lab?

The Amanchukwu Lab is actively recruiting graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and undergraduates to join us on the quest for designing and understanding next generation electrolytes for batteries and catalysis. You can expect to push boundaries in chemical synthesis, in-situ characterization tools, and electrochemistry. Learn more by visiting the lab page.