Achievement

Brent Volk completed his dissertation this year on shape memory polymers, a relatively new class of active materials that store a shape and yet return to an original configuration upon application of a stimulus such as temperature. This work relied strongly upon Volk’s IGERT interdisciplinary training in computational methods, and materials science, and ultimately involved a collaboration between two departments. He created an analytical model for these materials, and finally applied it to cardiovascular tubes and other biomedical devices. He presented the work at the 9th World Biomaterials Congress in China where he served as session chair, and was awarded a National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associateship. He is now conducting research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Research Laboratory. For his dissertation he was awarded Distinguished Graduate Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research, presented to a TAMU graduate each year for notable accomplishment in PhD research.