Jessica E. Torres earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical biological engineering in 2016 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is now a PhD candidate in chemical engineering at Purdue, where, as a graduate researcher, she has: designed elastin-like polypeptide formulations to function as a surgical sealant; performed burst pressure testing, compression testing, swelling, and rheology on hydrogels; and created an in vitro tissue model of drug diffusion. She has worked at the National University of Singapore designing organic solar cells, Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium modeling reactor flow, at a high school in Italy teaching biochemistry, at two different U.S. Department of Energy national labs, and at MIT and Purdue researching biomaterials for biomedical applications. Within the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Organization, she formed and serves as president of the Diversity and Culture Club. She is an active teacher and mentor, and her two current undergraduate students have risen to the level of co-authorship on recent publications. She is the recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Leslie Bottorff Fellowship, and the Marilyn Forney Trailblazer Award. Her future research will incorporate statistical modeling to bring the power of predictive modeling to the forefront of biomedical materials design. As a faculty member, Jessica plans to utilize her experience with curriculum design and learning theory to offer her students engaging courses and projects. 

Research Interests

protein-based biomaterials for biomedical applications