Thi Vo

Thi Vo is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The underlying theme of the Vo research group revolves around self-assembly and bottom-up design of multifunctional materials. The group employs both theory and computational methods to study fundamental, nanoscale interactions and applies such understandings to elucidate relevant experimental design parameters that will accelerate the discovery of the next generation of soft/polymeric materials. Specifically, they explore the role of charge, building block anisotropy, building block connectivity and linkage sequences, and directional interactions to precisely control microscopic structural organizations in order to tune macroscopic properties.

Vo received his bachelor’s in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Rice University in 2012 working with Walter Chapman on gas hydrate thermodynamics, supported by the Dwaine E. Rivers and the Rice University Undergraduate Scholarships. He then obtained his PhD in 2017 in chemical engineering from Columbia University working with Sanat K. Kumar on modeling DNA-mediated self-assembly, supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Afterward, Vo worked with Sharon C. Glotzer as a postdoctoral research fellow specializing in theorical modeling of entropically driven self-assembly, ligand-mediated self-assembly, and chiral/charge driven self-limiting assemblies. He joined Johns Hopkins University in 2022.