Leal receives CAREER Award

[figure="" class="align-center" width="180"]Research in the Cecilia Leal laboratory could one day lead to smart materials capable of interfacing with the human body to heal wounds, repair bones, and deliver drugs, vaccines and antibiotics through a programmable delivery system. Leal recently received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for this work and for her plans to bring STEM education to three different populations--middle school and incoming graduate students, and inmates at a local prison. "The main goals of this project are: i) to understand the self-assembly process of lipids, polymers, and associated species onto thin films and ii) to design nanostructures that respond to underlying surfaces and environmental cues. This knowledge will enable the development of smart interfaces that could be actuated by a device on one side and release therapeutics to biological tissue on the other," Leal explained. [figure="" class="align-right" width="410"]

She will combine different characterization methods such as Small Angle X-ray Diffraction with cell culture assays.

"This work is integrated with outreach activities to enhance the participation and exposure of minorities to science and technology," Leal explained. "We will develop a summer camp for middle school girls and we are also generating a Materials Science workshop as part of the Education Justice Project devoted to deliver instruction to incarcerated individuals."

The Education Justice Project offers educational programs at Danville Correctional Center through the University of Illinois. 

Leal received her Ph. D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 2006. Following appointments at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, pharmaceutical company Epitarget AS, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, she joined the MatSE faculty in 2012 as an assistant professor.