Chemical engineering faculty at UC Santa Barbara have awarded fifth-year PhD student Anukta Datta the department’s prestigious Schlinger Fellowship for Excellence in Chemical Engineering Research for the 2024-‘25 academic year. Established through a generous gift from Warren and Katharine Schlinger, the award recognizes a fourth- or fifth-year doctoral student in the department who has made outstanding progress in research projects, demonstrated by publications, submitted manuscripts, and other measures of impact. As a Fellow, Datta will receive a supplementary stipend and funding for research-related expenses.
“I feel very honored to receive the Schlinger Fellowship,” said Datta, who received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela in India. “It is deeply gratifying to know that the faculty recognize my potential and contributions, which reinforces my passion for research. Academically, the fellowship will help me travel to conferences and purchase equipment for my project.”
Advised by chemical engineering professor Matthew Helgeson, Datta works to understand how the molecular design of polymers controls how they deform and modify flow behavior in dilute solutions, ultimately to inform their engineering for novel or optimized behavior. Although this fundamental question pervades a broad range of applications, spanning motor oil, consumer products, and biotherapeutics, it has been relatively inaccessible to experiments because the extreme strain rates involved in these applications are far outside the range of laboratory instrumentation.
“Anukta has really broken open this problem by developing state-of-the-art devices and measurements that simultaneously measure the flow properties and molecular conformations of polymers at application-relevant strain rates,” said Helgeson. “Anukta’s work has contributed a very powerful set of measurements, analyses, and theories that can be used together to address a broad range of fundamental and applied problems in polymer and complex fluid engineering.”
To gain a better understanding of the flow-microstructure relationship, Datta combines rheology, which is the study of the flow of matter, with in situ small-angle scattering techniques. One of her main projects examines polymer deformation in extreme shear flows to help design rheological modifiers with improved mechanical resistance to the breakage of a chemical bond, an action known as scission. A second project utilizes machine learning to predict how soft materials evolve under different flow conditions by using a fluidic four-roll mill.
“My research has direct implications for industries that rely on processing complex fluids, such as consumer products, and coatings,” explained Datta. “By understanding how flow impacts material structure at the molecular level, we can design better processing methods to enhance product performance and stability.”
Recently, Datta had a key paper published in Macromolecules, and she has additional publications in progress. Prior to receiving the Schlinger Fellowship, Datta received a Regents Fellowship, the department’s CSP Technologies Teacher Scholars Fellowship, and the Best Oral Presentation Award at the department’s 2024 Graduate Student Symposium. She has also received invitations to speak at the Gordon Research Seminar and the Future of Rheology seminar series.
“Anukta is a phenomenal researcher, scholar, and team member. What has really made her stand out is her dedication not only to pursuing new knowledge, but to creating new tools that will support the research of others, while opening up many new research questions and directions to pursue,” said Helgeson. “Awards like the Schlinger Fellowship serve as a beacon of the value in supporting individuals who seek to pursue excellence and impact in fundamental research. Anukta and her research accomplishments are shining examples of these values, and I’m excited to see how she will continue to pursue excellence and innovation in her future career.”
After completing her degree later this year, Datta plans to enter the consumer goods or pharmaceutical industries and continue applying her expertise in complex fluids and rheology to solve real-world challenges in product formulation, materials design, and manufacturing optimization.
