The grant will be used to assist the funding of a graduate student working on relating molecular self-assembly to mechanical strength in nanocomposite hydrogels.

Gudrun Schmidt was born in Romania and lived there until her family moved to Germany. Encouraged by high school teachers in Germany, Gudrun went to the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, to study chemistry. Her undergraduate research in synthetic polymer chemistry was followed by graduate research in physical polymer chemistry and postdoctoral experience in polymer materials science. With international collaborations at Lund University (Sweden), the Institut Laue Langevin (France) and at Freiburg (Germany) Gudrun applied scattering techniques to investigate the structure formation in all kinds of soft matter. An Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship brought her to the National Institute of Standards and Technology where she became interested in polymer nanocomposites. Since then her research has become more interdisciplinary including biomaterials and bio-nanocomposites for tissue engineering. She joined the Purdue faculty in 2006 coming from Louisiana State University. She is an NSF CAREER awardee and received the Phi Kappa Phi Non-tenured Natural and Physical Sciences Award from Louisiana State University.