EST. 2014

Jaehoon, Courtney, Presley, and JGK have revealed the changes in viscoelastic properties when a linear and entangled macroinitiator transforms into a bottlebrush polymer as a function of increasing side chain length. This study reveals that most of the community is using side chains that are much longer than needed for BB properties! Now published in Macromolecules. Congrats to all!

The fall 2024 semester was busy with milestone events for the group! Zana and Nath-Eddy both passed their candidacy exams. Liam and Laura for both completed their 2nd Year Talks. Lastly,  Jaehoon kicked off the Spring 2025 semester with an excellent 4thYear seminar. Congrats to all for completing these milestones!

The Kennemur Group welcomes two new members to the graduate student team. Charlie Womack and Zach Patane both received their B.S. in Chemistry from the University of West Florida where they were taught organic chemistry by none other than Dr. Brandon Fultz (Ph.D. #3) who ignited their interest in polymer chemistry research. Welcome to the team!

Kennemur has been honored with the 2024-2025 William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award supported by the Florida Education Fund (FEF). This award recognizing faculty members who have provided exceptional guidance to McKnight Doctoral Fellows. Nath-Eddy, a McKnight Fellow, graciously provided the nomination.

Courtney, Skylar, Emily, and JGK have published a comprehensive study on the use of acetyl sulfate as a "soft" sulfonation reagent. They were able convert a precision polymer to a degree of sulfonation at any level (up to 98%), with minimal side reactions. They also completed one of the most in-depth characterization studies to accurately determine DS following post-polymerization modification. This work was published in Macromolecules. Congrats to all!

Courtney successfully defended her disseration entitled "Design, Architecture, & Function of Advanced Polypentenamers". She became the 8th Ph.D. from the Kennemur Lab. Congrats Dr. Leo! Good luck in your post-doc at ASU!

Zana has been selected as a recipient of the Dean's Award for Doctoral Excellence (DADE). This award provides up to 3 years of supplemental salary funding for high achieving doctoral students who are in their 2nd year of graduate school. Congrats!

We bid farewell and congratulations to Skylar Alonzo (B.S. Biochemistry) and Presley Santiago (B.S. Biology) who recently graduated. Thanks for all your hardwork!

Jaehoon was awarded an FSU Graduate Summer Research Fellowship for Collaboration with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This fellowship will allow Jaehoon to travel to ORNL this summer to further his research using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). Congrats!

The Kennemur Group was in full force at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in New Orleans, LA. Zana, Nath, and Jaehoon each presented posters and Courtney gave an oral presentation. JGK co-organized a symposium in the POLY Division on Advances in Ring Opening Polymerization / Ring Closing Depolymerization. Nath won a PMSE Centenntial Poster Award and Courtney won a POLY Best General Papers Oral Presentation Award! Congrats all around!

(open access) A study led by Courtney dives into the dilute solution properties of polynorbornene versus polycyclopentene bottlebrushes and was published in ACS Polymers Au. Herein, we examined the onset of bottlebrush viscosity and radii of of gyration as a function of increasing graft length on two different backbones with identical graft density. Check it out here! Congrats Courtney and team!

JK was awarded a new US Patent for development of new polymeric materials from biomass terpenes in pine sap. This patent covers the successful ROMP of delta-pinene and the resulting macromolecular structures. Full patent details found here.

The POLY/PMSE Student Chapter at FAMU-FSU held their 3rd Annual Polymer Symposium featuring five student talks, over 20 posters, and keynote lectures by Dr. Karen Winey (UPenn) and Dr. Daniel Hallinan (FAMU-FSU). More can be found here.

Congratulations to Nath-Eddy Moody who has been selected as a 2023 McKnight Doctoral Fellow! The McKnight Doctoral Fellowships are supported by the Florida Education Fund and will assist Nath in annual stipend and tuition over three years. Congrats Nath!

Its been a while since an update. Much has happened, but we will start with welcoming all the new members to the Kennemur Group: Dr. C. Satheeshkumar (Post-Doc), Laura Deloso (New Grad), Liam Radeke (New Grad), Sophia Henges (UG), and Kayla Downarowicz (UG). Check out their profiles on our members page!

A collaboration with experts in the area of polymer crystallization has led to a new publication in Macromolecules. Dr. Kohji Tashiro and Prof. Rufina Alamo explored the crystal structure of precision isotactic polypentenamer systems developed by Gina! You can read more about this exciting work here. Synthesis of this material was funded by the NSF DMR CAREER Award.

Brianna Coia successfully defended her dissertation entitled "A COMPUTATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON IMPORTANT ENERGETICS IN THE RING-OPENING METATHESIS POLYMERIZATION (ROMP) OF LOW AND MEDIUM STRAINED CYCLOOLEFINS" She becomes the 7th Ph.D. from the group. Later this summer she will begin a Product Scientist position at Birla Carbon. Congrats Dr. Coia and great job!

Former member, Dr. William Neary (2019), has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position within the Department of Chemistry at the University of California - Riverside. A feature article can be found here. Congrats Billy! Update: Here is his research group site!

Congrats to Coia, Luke, and Augie on their publication in The Journal of Physical Chemistry - A where they performed a large in-depth study to elucidate predictive models for torsional ring strain energy of 73 cyclopentene derivatives. Ecli A link to the paper can be found here.

Congrats to undergraduate seniors Ethan Corey (B.S. Biomedical Engineering) and Karl Kinner (B.S. Biochemistry) on graduating! Ethan will begin graduate school at Emory University this fall. Karl will continue blazing a path towards medical school. Congrats and thanks for all your hardwork!

The Kennemur Group was well represented at the FSU Chemistry & Biochemistry Departmental Awards Ceremony this spring. Brianna Coia was recognized for the Phillip Schlenoff Graduate Travel Award. Undergraduate senior, Karl Kinner was recognized with graduating Summa Cum Laude in addition to the Department Service and Citizenship Award. Former undergraduate, August Specht, received a Brautlecht Scholarship. Courtney Leo was nominated for the FSU Graduate Student Leadership Award. Congrats to all!

Kennemur has been selected for the 2022-2023 Florida State University Developing Scholar Award! This award is given to only a handful of Associate Professors at FSU each year and comes with research money support.

Brianna Coia gave a talk in the "Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research" Symposium at the Spring 2023 National ACS Meeting in Indy. Kennemur gave an invited talk in the "Advances in Olefin Metathesis" Symposium.

A proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation, Division of Chemistry, under the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, & Nanostructured Program has been officially funded. This 3-year grant will provide ~$460K to explore reactivity of comonomers with varying ring size / strain energies in ROMP.

The College of Arts and Sciences at FSU has featured our recent grant from the Department of Energy and describes our role in the highly collaborative efforts to understand key mechanisms in the transport of ions in fuel cells.

Ana P. gave a poster on her terpene polymer research at the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) 2023 at UCF. Congrats!

JGK has joined the Editorial Advisory Board for Macromolecules for a three-year term starting in Jan. 2023. Macromolecules is the premier journal in the field of polymer science and publishing forefront, original research on all fundamental aspects of macromolecular science. Congrats!

JGK has been elected to the Executive Committee of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY). He will serve as Secretary for a 3-year term beginning 01/01/2023. Congrats!

Courtney and JGK have written a News and Views Article for Nature Synthesis. Here we review and provide insight on an exciting development cyclic-acyclic monomers metathesis polymerization (CAMMP) by the research group of Changle Chen. 

Early October has been busy with JGK giving 3 invited research seminars at the University of West Florida (Pensacola, FL), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, Gaithersburg, MD), and  University of Maryland (College Park, MD). 

1st year graduate students, Zana Singleton and Nath-Eddy Moody, have joined the team. You can check out their new profiles on the members page. Welcome!

A multi-Pi and multi-institutional 3-year grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) Basic Energy Sciences (BES) totaling $2.2 million has been awarded to the team of PIs: Karen Winey, Mike Hickner, Amalie Frischknecht, and JGK. The Kennemur group will be tasked with the synthesis and characterization of novel polymers to reveal new mechanisms in the transport of ions for use in fuel cell technologies. Congrats to all involved!

The Kennemur Group and Lubrizol Corporation have teamed up to develop improved fluorine-free membranes for potential use in fuel-cell technology. We look forward to fostering this exciting collaboration!

Congrats to Coia, Courtney, and JGK for each delivering a great research talk at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall National Meeting in Chicago, IL.

As promised below, congrats to Gina on her new publication in Macromolecules. Gina made the first  and only isotactic precision polyethylene derivative containing alcohol pendant at every fifth backbone carbon. In collaboration with the Alamo Lab, we determined the crystalline melting temperature increases by 65 °C when traversing from atactic to isotactic! This material presents unanswered structure-property relationships on precision materials.

Gina successfully defended her dissertation and is now the sixth Ph.D. from the Kennemur Group. On the same day of her defense we learned her new paper (story above) was accepted. Heck of a day, Congrats Gina!!

Congrats to Nam on his publication in Polymer Chemistry. Here the synthesis of a high-yielding post-polymerization modification is reported and produces a precision phenylsulfonyl-(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide material. In a collaboration with the Hallinan Group, we blend this material with varying compositions of PEO and monitor phase behavior and conductivity as a function of blend composition. Competitive Li-ion conductivity and transference values near unity are discovered.

Congrats to Coia and Sarah on their publication in Journal of Polymer Science. They do a deep-dive into DFT calculations to understand correlations between ring strain energy and enthalpy of polymerization on ROMP of cyclopentene derivatives. 

Congrats to Gina on her publication with new collaborators Profs. Ken Hanson and Billy Oates to explore a stilbene-based photomechanical polyimide using low-energy radiation and triplet photosensitizers.

Congrats to Nam on his publication with our collaborators Profs. Karen Winey and Daniel Hallinan to explore a new precision phenylsulfonyl-(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide material and Li-ion transport in low molar mass PEO blends.

JGK gave an invited talk in Napa, CA at the 2022 Polymers for Fuel Cells, Energy Storage, and Conversion Workshop hosted by the ACS POLY Division. Thanks to the organizers!

Congratulations to Gina for winning the 2022 Graduate Teaching Excellence Award in Organic Chemistry and to Coia for winning the 2022 Cheryl and Joel Rosenfeld Endowment Award!

Congratulations to Coia on winning the ACS POLY Graduate Student Travel Award! This award will support her to give an oral presentation at the ACS Fall National Meeting in Chicago later this year.

Congrats to Courtney on becoming the 1st President of the newly registered ACS POLY/PMSE Student Chapter at FAMU-FSU. She along with an excellent executive committee organized the 1st Annual Polymer Symposium with Plenary Lectures from Profs. Davita Watkins and Ralm Ricarte. Check out their website! 

Nam successfully defended is dissertation and is now the fifth Ph.D. from the Kennemur Group. We like the number 5. Congrats!!

Congratulations to Caroline (B.S. Chemistry) and Sarah (B.S. Biochemistry) on graduating! Good luck on your future endeavors!

The Kennemur group welcomes our two newest graduate students, Emily and Jaehoon. More about them can be found on the members page

Congrats to Nam on his co-first authored publication in Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics. Here we collaborated with Prof. Daniel Hallinan and Prof. Rufina Alamo to understand miscibility and ion transport in PEO blended with precision polyelectrolytes.

In a back-to-back double header, Coia and Courtney both passed their candidacy exams. Congrats to both of you!

JGK was awarded a US Patent 11,136,426 entitled "Cyclopentene monomers and methods of polymerization" for his work discovering highly precise and isotactic PCP derivatives.

Congrats to Nam, Gina, and JGK who gave excellent talks at the 2021 ACS National Meeting - Atlanta/Virtual

Mark, Coia, and Heather published their work investigating the effects of alpha-pinene on the ROMP of delta-pinene. Congrats to all!

JGK collaborates with Prof. Karen Winey and Dr. Amalie Frischknecht to explore a fluorine-free precision polymer electrolyte with high proton transport.

FSU News and FSU Arts and Sciences highlight our recent discovery of a pine sap-based plastic with a News Article and a Research in Focus Video . The story was picked up and re-posted by several news outlets including Phys.Org and Azo Materials.

Mark becomes the 4th Ph.D. student from Kennemur Group and successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Synthesis and Characterization of Novel Materials from Biomass Feedstocks"

JGK teams up with host Prof. Ken Hanson to perform educational outreach on plastics while simultaneously trying to beat old-school video games. Check out the YouTube Video

Mark, Gina, Nam, and Taylor each gave a great talks at the ACS Spring Virtual Meeting. Congrats to all!