Bio

Kaylee grew up in Ludlow, Massachusetts where she swam competitively for her town team, her high school team, and a USA Swimming team.

Currently, she is an undergraduate at UNH majoring in Chemical Engineering. Kaylee joined the Tsavalas lab in 2024 where, over the summer, she will be working on functionalizing polymer particles such that they can be dispersed in a bio-derived hydrogel and have their interface crosslinked to the gel upon demand. This we hypothesize will lead to a greater range of viscoelastic properties than that of the hydrogel itself. The key is to make the interfacial crosslinking stimuli responsive on demand and potentially also to allow for an orthogonal stimuli to initiate degradation, also on demand. 

Kaylee also aspires to begin her own research project focusing on developing a biodegradable polymer that can be synthesized into sheets of fabric and made into clothing.