Richard Spontak Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, NC State University
Engineering Building I (EB1) 2088E
Bio
Dr. Richard J. Spontak is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, and Alumni Distinguished Graduate and Undergraduate Professor at NC State University.
He received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering (with honors/high distinction) from the Pennsylvania State University in 1983 and was later awarded the Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. He then pursued post-doctoral research in Materials Science & Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) and Condensed Matter Physics at the Institute for Energy Technology (Norway) before joining the Corporate Research Division of The Procter & Gamble Company in 1990.
In 1992, he accepted a faculty position at North Carolina State University, where he supervises the Macromolecular Materials & Morphology Group. Since that time, Spontak has published over 300 peer-reviewed journal papers and over 35 scholarly works as book chapters and invited monographs, and his work has been featured on 31 journal covers and cited over 14,000 times according to Google Scholar (as of November 2021). Although active in a diverse range of disciplines, his primary research interests relate to the phase behavior and morphology/property development of nanostructured polymers, polymer nanocomposites and coatings, electron microscopy, and stimuli-responsive soft materials.
Spontak resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Josie, and has two children, Danielle and Joshua.
Publications
- Fundamental Principles and Emerging Opportunities for Selectively-Solvated Block Copolymer Networks in Nonpolar Media: A Perspective , ADVANCED PHYSICS RESEARCH (2024)
- Materials descriptors for advanced water dissociation catalysts in bipolar membranes , NATURE MATERIALS (2024)
- Thermoplastic Elastomers and Their Physical Gels Electrospun into Tunable Microfibrous Nonwoven Mats: Structure Formation and Property Enhancement , ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS (2024)
- Carbon molecular-sieve membranes developed from a Troger's base polymer and possessing superior gas-separation performance , JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE (2023)
- Characterization of Controlled-Distribution Hydrogenated Styrenic Block Copolymers by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy , ACS APPLIED POLYMER MATERIALS (2023)
- Fundamentals of and advances in nanocellulose and nanochitin systems , ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING POLYMER RESEARCH (2023)
- High-performance carbon-capture membranes developed by (non)solvent-induced nanostructural rearrangement in Nafion , JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A (2023)
- Preventing the spread of life-threatening gastrointestinal microbes on the surface of a continuously self-disinfecting block polymer , JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE (2023)
- Surface Mechanical Properties and Topological Characteristics of Thermoplastic Copolyesters after Precisely Controlled Abrasion , ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2023)
- Tunable thermoplastic elastomer gels derived from controlled-distribution triblock copolymers with crystallizable endblocks , MATERIALS HORIZONS (2023)