LSU received an NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program award for AI-driven multifunctional polymer research, led by Guoqiang Li with Jimmy Lawrence as co-PI.
Titilayo Oluwole won a poster award at the Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference (SBEC 2026).
Titilayo Oluwole received a Coates Memorial Fund conference travel award from the Cain Department of Chemical Engineering.
2025
Alejandro Ramirez won first place in the poster competition at the Gulf Coast Polymer Conference at Tulane University.
Michael Dearman defended his PhD thesis on the glass transition of bottlebrush polymers.
Jimmy Lawrence gave his award lecture in the PMSE Early Investigator Symposium at ACS Fall 2025 in Washington, DC.
Nduka Ogbonna’s discrete brush polymer 19F MRI agents appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
LSU approved Jimmy Lawrence’s promotion to Associate Professor with tenure, effective August 2025.
The ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering named Jimmy Lawrence a 2025 PMSE Early Investigator.
2024
Nduka Ogbonna defended the lab’s first PhD thesis and went on to a postdoctoral position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Jimmy Lawrence received the LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award.
2023
Jimmy Lawrence received an NSF CAREER award from the Division of Materials Research to study how side-chain topology sets the properties of bottlebrush polymers.
The lab received an NIH MIRA for early-stage investigators (R35GM151217) to develop discrete, metal-free polymer MRI contrast agents.
Michael Dearman’s Polymer Chemistry paper on tailoring the glass transition of bottlebrush polymers was selected as an Editor’s Choice.
2022
Michael Dearman defended his MS thesis.
Nduka Ogbonna’s report of the first fully discrete bottlebrush polymers appeared in JACS Au and made the front cover.
2021
Nduka Ogbonna’s study of side-chain dispersity in bottlebrush assembly at the air/water interface appeared in the Journal of Polymer Science as a featured article and front cover.
Jimmy Lawrence was awarded a two-year renewal of his BASF Researcher in Residence position.
Jimmy Lawrence received an ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator award to design precision polymer ligands for nanoparticle surfaces.
2020
The Louisiana Board of Regents funded our Research Competitiveness Subprogram proposal on precision polymers for metal-free MRI and sensing.
Our work with the Hawker and Read de Alaniz groups on polymer stereocomplexation for nanoparticle assembly appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
2019
Jimmy Lawrence was awarded a Researcher in Residence position with the BASF Sustainable Living Laboratory.
2018
Jimmy Lawrence joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at LSU as an assistant professor and started the Lawrence Lab.
Talks and posters
Since 2018, the group has given 50 talks and 21 posters at conferences and invited seminars.