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Dr. Elizabeth S. Sterner

Elizabeth Sterner

Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Email: esterner@lvc.edu

Phone: 717-867-6644

Office Location: Neidig-Garber 419

Website: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0512-8236

B.S., Creighton University; M.S., Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Expertise:
Polymer Chemistry, Polymer Science, General Chemistry

Research & Practice Areas:
Polymers are long chain-like molecules made of repeating structural units. Researchers in this group design new repeat units, chain shapes, and processing techniques to add useful functionality to everyday materials. By blending naturally-derived particles into rubber, surgical gloves can be made more puncture resistant and surgical gowning can become antimicrobial. Smart structure design creates impact-resistant polymers that are just as robust as conventional Kevlar, but easier to synthesize and process into body armor. Tailoring chain shape, by going from purely linear to brush polymers, allows for the creation of materials that are all solid-state, super soft, and super tough at the same time. Adding active structures to these brushes add electrical conductivity.

We make materials that display useful and surprising behaviors. I have three main project lines, all of which focus on controlling molecular structure, polymer structure, and polymer processing to achieve new material properties. The first project is working on rubber composites that could be used for puncture-resistant and inherently anti-microbial surgical gloves and gowning. The second project seeks to generate new impact-resistant plastics by engineering the way the polymer chains can vibrate on the molecular level. The third is designing all-solid-state rubbers that are super-soft (easy to stretch) and super-tough (hard to break) at the same time, with an eye toward applications in soft robotics and wearable sensors.