My research project aims to find ways to produce high-performance materials from engineered silks that will be usable in industrial applications.

I am developing a silk film deposition method which creates a thin layer of silk proteins that assemble into highly hydrophobic conformations. Such coatings can be used in demanding applications where water resistance is necessary.

I am also researching methods to spin the engineered silk from its liquid form into fibers. For example, together with Robotic Instruments group we have built a robotic device that can both spin and tensile test the fibers simultaneously.