Faculty

Biography

Darren J. Lipomi is Chair and Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of Rochester, and in the Materials Science graduate program. From 2012-2024, he was a member of the faculty in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at UC San Diego, and also served as Associate Dean for Students and the Faculty Director of the IDEA Engineering Student Center at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD. Lipomi earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in physics as a Beckman Scholar at Boston University in 2005, and his PhD in chemistry at Harvard University in 2010, with Prof. George M. Whitesides. From 2010-2012, he was an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Zhenan Bao at Stanford University. His research interests include molecular engineering of electronic and electroactive polymers, especially the mechanical properties of semiconducting polymers for flexible solar cells, biomechanical sensors, and phenomena that occur at the intersection of materials chemistry with human perception and cognition. He is the recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator award, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and the NSF BRITE-Pivot award. He hosts a podcast, “Molecular Podcasting with Darren Lipomi” and associated YouTube channel (Darren_Lipomi) that together have >16,000 subscribers. These venues serve as a resource to students, postdocs, and other early-career researchers.

Courses Offered (subject to change)

•  Introduction to Nanoengineering

Selected Publications

• Darren J. Lipomi and Robert S. Ramji, 2024. Introduction to Nanoengineering, Royal Society of Chemistry, 511 pp.
• Samuel J. Edmunds, Armando D. Urbina, Hannah E. Fishman, Yi Qie, Rafael A. Montalvo, Noel Sebastien D. Mallari, Marc N. Levy, Rachel Blau, Abdulhameed Abdal, Andrea M. Armani, Tse Nga Ng, Nathan A. Romero, and Darren J. Lipomi 2024. Photography-Inspired Patterned Vapor Phase Polymerization of Conductive PEDOT on Rigid and Stretchable Substrates. ACS Macro Letters 6:2738-2747.
• Alexander X. Chen, Nicholas A. Azpiroz, Sarah E. Brew, Antonio M. Valdez, Guillermo L. Esparza, Yi Qie, Noah J. Valdez, Rachel Blau, Jordan A. Bunch, Taralyn J. Perry, Tarek Rafeedi, Abdulhameed Abdal, Ignasi Simon, Duncan W. Harwood, Darren J. Lipomi, David P. Fenning 2024. Silver-free, intrinsically conductive adhesives for shingled solar cells.Cell Reports Physical Science.
• Dean Rockwell, Lisa Trahan, and Darren J. Lipomi, 2024. Social Community in Action: How two undergraduate engineering scholar programs facilitate involvement in communities of practice. Studies in Engineering Education. 5:50-72.
• Eileen H. Shinn, Adam S. Garden, Susan K. Peterson, Dylan J. Leupi, Minxing Chen, Rachel Blau, Laura Becerra, Tarek Rafeedi, Julian Ramirez, Daniel Rodriquez, Finley VanFossen, Sydney Zehner, Patrick Mercier, Joseph Wang, Kate Hutcheson, Ehab Hanna, Darren J. Lipomi 2023. Iterative patient testing of a stimuli-responsive swallowing activity sensor to promote extended user engagement during the first year after radiation. JMIR Cancer 10:e47359.
• Tarek Rafeedi, Abdulhameed Abdal, Beril Polat, Katherine A. Hutcheson, Eileen H. Shinn, and Darren J. Lipomi. Wearable, epidermal devices for assessment of swallowing function.NPJ Flexible Electronics 7:52.
• Jason X. Tuermer-Lee, Allison Lim, Louis Ah, Rachel Blau, Yi Qie, Wade Shipley, Laure V. Kayser, Samantha M. Russman, Andrea R. Tao, Shadi A. Dayeh, and Darren J. Lipomi. Synthesis of PEDOT:PSS Brushes Grafted from Gold Using ATRP for Increased Electrochemical and Mechanical Stability 2023.ACS Macro Lett. 12:1718-1726.

Honors

• Distinguished Teaching Award, Academic Senate, San Diego Division (2023)
• NSF BRITE-Pivot Award (2022)
• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE; nominated 2015, conferred 2019)
• Inducted to Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society (2019)
• Lectureship and Best Paper Award, Chemistry of Materials (2018)
• Campus Award for Equity and Diversity, UCSD (2017)
• Hall of Fame, Hilton Central High School, Hilton NY (2016)
• Graduate Teaching Award, UCSD Graduate Student Association (2016)
• NIH Director’s New Innovator Award ($2.2M), NIH (2015–2020)
• Best Teacher of the Year, UCSD Department of NanoEngineering (2013–2014)
• National Science Foundation BRIGE Award ($175k), NSF (2013–2015)
• Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program award ($360k), AFOSR (2013–2016)