People

Professor
Co-Director, KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability

Professor Archer currently holds the Marjorie L. Hart Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He received the Career Award from the National Science Foundation, 1996, Dupont Young Professor Award 1996-1999, 3M Company Non-Tenured Faculty Award 1995, and the George Armistead Faculty Fellowship 1999-2000.

Research Focus

Polymer liquids are classified as complex fluids because their properties in external fields depend on a host of variables (e.g. the rate at which the field is applied, field strength, the spatial scale over which field strength changes, time, temperature, etc.). In virtually every case the source of complexity can be traced to the large size of the constituent molecules and to the finite time-scale on which they respond to change. My research group uses experiment, theory, and computer simulations to determine how physical chemistry of individual molecules and cooperative motion of large ensembles of molecules influence polymer properties in the liquid state.