Zauscher Lab

The Zauscher lab research lies at the intersection of surface and colloid science, polymer materials engineering, and biointerface science. These broad inquiries deal with fundamental behaviors of soft-wet materials on surfaces and interfaces.

Current projects include:

(1) fabrication, manipulation, and characterization of stimulus-responsive biomolecular and bio-inspired polymeric nanostructures on surfaces;
(2) nanomechanics of soft-wet materials and hybrid biological/non-biological microdevices;
(3) the role of glycoproteins in boundary lubrication of cartilage.

Recent Publications:

Saito, I., R. J. Sheridan, S. Zauscher, and L. C. Brinson. “Pushing AFM to the Boundaries: Interphase Mechanical Property Measurements near a Rigid Body.” Macromolecules 58, no. 2 (January 28, 2025): 980–88. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.4c01993.

Sheridan, Richard J., Stefan Zauscher, and L Catherine Brinson. “BOTTS: broadband optimized time-temperature superposition for vastly accelerated viscoelastic data acquisition.” Soft Matter 20, no. 39 (October 2024): 7811–20. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sm00798k.

Gonzales, Gavin, Jiaul Hoque, Colin Kaeo, Stefan Zauscher, and Shyni Varghese. “Grafting of cationic molecules to hyaluronic acid improves adsorption and cartilage lubrication.” Biomaterials Science 12, no. 18 (September 2024): 4747–58. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4bm00532e.