Spring in CH

This work is dedicated to the late Bob Grubbs. Thank you for teaching me chemistry. Wouldn't be here without you.

The work was led by Dr. Terence Ho, a then visiting PhD student in my group from NTU Singapore in late 2024, and Amin Sassi, a visiting Master's student in 2025.

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In our work, we focus on understanding how thermal processing, aging time, and print intensity impact the degree of crystallinity, and thus mechanical properties of the printed pCOE.

We further demonstrate how we could use melting as a way to introduce adaptive behavior in 3D structures!

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For the past couple of years, inspired by some amazing work from Sandia National Lab, we wondered if we could use photoROMP to print semicrystalline thermoplastics.

As Sandia showed recently, turns out you can!

Using a different photosystem, we also show the use of photoROMP to print pCOE

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New preprint from the group!

tldr: We explore the thermomechanical properties of semicrystalline poly(cyclooctene) (pCOE) 3D printed via photoROMP!

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chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10....

Thank you! For a change, it isn’t a “reimbursement-type” grant, so I’m excited to see what happens next too!

Yeaaa it is frustrating. I hope those days are past me

Thank you!

Took a little bit of time but I finally got my first big grant!

Some observations:

1. My eval panel was chemistry which was quite unexpected. It's usually engineering.

2. Not a single "PI is too young to lead a project" comment. I guess getting some corresponding author papers out did the trick.

"For some perspective, the average first 105-degree day of the year normally occurs on May 22nd,” NWS said in a statement."

Wow! That’s so cool, Michael!

Same here! How is it like in France @sylvaingigan.bsky.social

Such creative work!

Oof. I just read the news and I felt this immensely

Ooh! This is a nice collection

Nah haha. The columns are the food items per day. The rows are just different options available each day

Had to do a double take when I saw the lunch menu for tomorrow.

Mmhm. Tarte Choléra.

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...

Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling.
If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It’s unclear if this is good news or not!

Receiving academic emails with good (ish) news is always a game of "is this real" or "am I being phished?"

It’s a fun read! Felt less sciency / more implausible than The Martian but still good

The MSCA postdoc fellowship funding scores this year are absolutely brutal. Funding thresholds for some disciplines are as high as 97%!

It’s almost a lottery at this point

Wow! I don’t think I’ve heard many people say that the weather in Singapore is “quite pleasant”

Caltech Mourns the Passing of George Rossman (1944–2026) Caltech mineralogist George Rossman (PhD '71) passed away on February 6, 2026.

George Rossman was one of the kindest professors I knew during my time at Caltech. Incredible scientist with an infectious passion for science. I have fond memories of him showing me his collection of rocks and metals that he kept in his office.

RIP

www.caltech.edu/about/news/c...

And we made the cover!

This is a real optical image of copper dendrites growing into our hydrogels during our in-situ precipitation process.

What about transEU with Swiss partners 😉

Ooh! A nice collab with Al Nelson!

A special gif for Singaporeans :)

Just came across your account and this thread. Interesting work!