Thi Vo, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has received the AFOSR Young Investigator Program award with his proposal “Synthetic-Biological LEGOs—Designing Versatile Nanoscale Synthons for Self-Assembly.” Vo is one of 48 recipients for the award in 2024. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) received 159 proposals for FY24 funding.
The AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) award aims to enhance the career development of young investigators to help in the forwarding of the Air Force as well as related scientific and engineering challenges. Recipients of this award received three-year grants of up to $450,000. AFOSR, the basic research arm of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s mission allows young scientists and engineers to explore new, unique ideas without worry of funding agencies. AFOSR expands the horizon of scientific knowledge through leadership and their research program.
Vo’s research focuses around self-assembly and bottom-up design of multifunctional materials. Vo’s research group uses both theory and computational methods to study fundamental, nanoscale interactions and explores the role of charge, building block anisotropy, building block connectivity and linkage sequences, and directional interactions to precisely control microscopic structural organizations to tune macroscopic properties.