Laurel is a postdoctoral scholar in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, in the non-Newtonian Fluids Laboratory. She received her PhD from Stanford University in 2022. She also has a Master's degree from Stanford University and a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.
Her work focuses on the use of non-Newtonian fluids such as colloids, emulsions, foams, and polymeric/elastic fluids as a physical toolkit to build adaptive micro-machines. She studies the nonlinearities of complex fluids as a starting point for the ground-up construction of non-biological perceptive systems for applications to real-world problems. For example, she recently constructed a swimming robot that reports the elasticity of a fluid through its swimming velocity (Kroo et al. JFM 2022). She also studied how foam-like materials can self-assemble and mechanically pattern through localized activity (Kroo et al. Soft Matter 2023). Her current work at MIT is focused on sensing (and harnessing) conformational state transitions in polymeric viscoelastic fluids for applications in food science and manufacturing. Additionally, Laurel has been involved in a number of technical research efforts dedicated to equity and inclusion, including contributing to the original design and launch of the Foldscope project (Prakash, Cybulski and Kroo, US Patent US9810892B2) — making microscopy more accessible to kids across socioeconomic backgrounds. Laurel was also involved with a number of COVID-response efforts, including an emergency mask project that was responsible for protecting over 30,000 healthcare workers worldwide during the first year of the pandemic (Kroo et al. PLOSone 2021).
Laurel was recently selected as a 2023 UC Berkeley Rising Star in Mechanical Engineering, a 2023 Rowland Fellows program finalist (Harvard University, final selection process ongoing) and was a 2022 speaker in the Caltech Young Investigator program. During her PhD, she was a fellow of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). She is an inventor on 3 patents/patent applications, and has enjoyed teaching at both Stanford University (as a TA in BIOE41 “Statistical Mechanics of Macromolecules”) and at MIT (as a guest lecturer in 2.341 “Macromolecular hydrodynamics”). Prior to her academic research career, Laurel was an intern at NASA, Apple Inc. and several start-ups, and spent several years as a certified private flute instructor (classical performance).
Laurel aspires to start a laboratory in 2024-2025 in macromolecular hydrodynamics ( experiment and theory), with focus on a range of applications, including carbon sequestration, battery development, flow-mediated physical chemistry, and synthetic biology.
Upcoming in-person seminars /visits in Winter 2023-2024:
(1) Dec 2023 Invited Department Seminar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) - Department of Chemical Engineering
(2) Stanford University, Chemical Engineering department Seminar — Tuesday, January 30th, 2024
(3) University of Michigan (Ann-Arbor) — Mechanical Engineering Department seminar February 5, 2024
(4) Macromolecules Gordon Research Seminar — invited talk on Saturday, February 10th, 2024 in Ventura, CA
(5) University of Massachusetts, Amherst - Department of Polymer Science and Engineering Seminar, February 26, 2024
(6) CU Boulder Department of Mechanical Engineering, February 29, 2024
(7) Columbia University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, March 5