Ben Nelson

I am a PhD candidate in Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, jointly supervised by Kristi Anseth and Chris Bowman. Through my research I develop photoresponsive polymer networks enabling light-driven control over network architecture, mechanical properties, and recyclability. My work bridges polymer chemistry, soft matter mechanics, and additive manufacturing, creating the advanced sustainable and reconfigurable materials of the future. For my graduate work, I have focused on 1,2-dithiolanes as a sustainable and intrinsically photoreactive chemistry to design and create these photoresponsive polymer networks.

I am a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research Fellow, enabling me to conduct in situ photo NMR studies of polymerization mechanisms at Sandia National Laboratories. Prior to my graduate studies, I earned a B.A. in Chemistry (ACS certified, summa cum laude) from Luther College, with minors in Mathematics and Physics. I conducted undergraduate research in the lab of Molly Wilker at Luther, focusing on the shape-dependent properties of CdSe nanoparticals, as well as undergraduate research stays at Bio-Techne and the Montanuniversität Leoben.

I look forward to building a research program that spans photochemistry, polymer design, and materials engineering to create dynamic, sustainable, and reconfigurable materials. I aim to mentor an interdisciplinary team bridging fundamental dynamic chemistry with real-world applications.