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Paula Pranda, a��chemical and biological engineering��PhD student, earned the top student honor at the Adhesion Society meeting��for her research on��aligned Liquid Crystal Elastomer (LCE) adhesives. The society’s annual meeting was held Feb. 16-19 in New Orleans.��

Pranda received the Alan Gent Distinguished Student Paper Award, recognizing the most distinguished paper among top students who had previously won the Peebles Award for outstanding graduate research in adhesion science.��The Adhesion Society advances adhesion science, promotes education and honors achievements in the field.

“Winning this award is an incredible honor,” said Pranda,��who works with CU Boulder’s��Hayward Research Group and Responsive and Programmable Materials Group. “It’s validating as a young researcher and exciting because it shows that the scientific community values our work.”

LCEs are soft, stretchy materials with a unique structure formed by liquid crystal monomers, which have a long oval shape. Using specific processing methods, these monomers can be aligned in one direction. When stretched along this alignment, the polymer behaves like a classic elastomer, meaning it can stretch and return to its original shape. However, when stretched perpendicular to the alignment, it becomes much softer and stretchier as energy is dissipated into rotating the monomers.��

CU Boulder and the 3M Company research team leveraged this property to develop pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs). Their findings showed that the peel strength depends on monomer orientation—adhesives are harder to remove when monomers are perpendicular to the peeling direction. By using a laser to pattern different alignments, the team was able to create adhesives with regions of varying peel force.

“This award is a testament to the community's excitement about Paula’s findings on how adhesion can be tailored using LCEs, and her outstanding presentation,” said Professor Ryan Hayward, the director of the Hayward Research Group and the department chair. "Tim (White) and I are very proud of Paula—it has been a true pleasure collaborating with her on this project.”

Directional control of adhesion offers many potential applications, Pranda said. In diabetic ports, patterned LCE adhesives can ensure strong skin adhesion while allowing painless removal in a specific direction. Similarly, for screen protectors, aligning monomers perpendicular to common failure points can prevent edge peeling, while parallel alignment allows for easy removal when needed.

“This recognition means so much,” Pranda said. “I couldn’t have achieved it without the support of my amazing mentors and collaborators at CU Boulder and the 3M Company—especially Professor��Ryan Hayward,Professor��Tim White, Hyunki Kim,,.”