ABOUT
    Blair
    Brettmann
    Assistant Professor
    404-894-2535
    MoSE 3100P

    Blair Brettmann received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. She received her Master's in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT in 2009 following internships at GlaxoSmithKline (Upper Merion, PA) and Mawana Sugar Works (Mawana, India).

    Blair received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at MIT in 2012 working with the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing under Prof. Bernhardt Trout. Her research focuses on linking molecular to micron scale phenomena to processing and multicomponent complex mixtures to enable rapid and science-driven formulation and product development.

    Following her Ph.D., Blair worked as a research engineer for Saint-Gobain Ceramics and Plastics for two years. While at Saint-Gobain she worked on polymer-based wet coatings and dispersions for various applications, including window films, glass fiber mats and architectural fabrics. Later, Blair served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago with Prof. Matthew Tirrell.

    Students:
    Selected publications
    1. "Multivalent Ions Induce Lateral Structural Inhomogeneities in Polyelectrolyte Brushes," Yu, J., Jackson, N. E., Xu, X., Brettmann, B. K., Ruths, M., de Pablo, J. J., & Tirrell, M. (2017). Science advances3(12), eaao1497, http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/12/eaao1497
    2. "Lateral Structure Formation in Polyelectrolyte Brushes Induced by Multivalent Ions," Blair Brettmann, Philip Pincus, Matthew Tirrell - Macromolecules, 201750 (3), pp 1225–1235, DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.6b02563
    3. "Comparing Solvophobic and Multivalent Induced Collapse in Polyelectrolyte Brushes," Nicholas E. Jackson, Blair K. Brettmann, Venkatram Vishwanath, Matthew Tirrell, and Juan J. de Pablo, ACS Macro Lett., 2017, 6 (2), pp 155–160, DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00837
    4. “Bulk and Nanoscale Polypeptide Based Polyelectrolyte Complexes,” A. Marciel, E. Chung, B. Brettmann, L. Leon, Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, doi: 10.1016/j.cis.2016.06.012 (2016). 
    5. "Bridging contributions to polyelectrolyte brush collapse in multivalent salt solutions," Blair Kathryn Brettmann, Nicolas Laugel, Norman Hoffmann, Philip Pincus, Matthew Tirrell, Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry, 54, 284-291 (2016). [PDF]
    6. "Templated Nucleation of Acetaminophen on Spherical Excipient Agglomerates," J.L Quon, K. Chadwick, G.P.F. Wood, I. Sheu, B.K. Brettmann, A.S. Myerson, B.L. Trout, Langmuir, 29, 3292-3300 (2013). [PDF]
    7. "Electrospun Formulations Containing Crystalline Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients," B.K. Brettmann, K. Cheng, A.S. Myerson, B.L. Trout, Pharmaceutical Research, 30, 238-246 (2013). [PDF]
    8. "Free Surface Electrospinning of Fibers Containing Microparticles," B.K. Brettmann, S. Tsang, K.M. Forward, G.C. Rutledge, A.S. Myerson, B.L. Trout, Langmuir, 28, 9714-9721 (2012). [PDF]
    9. "Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance study of the physical stability of electrospun drug and polymer solid solutions," B.K. Brettmann, A.S. Myerson, B.L. Trout, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 101, 2185-2193 (2012). [PDF]
    10. "Solid-state NMR characterization of high-loading solid solutions of API and excipients formed by electrospinning," B. Brettmann, E. Bell, A. Myerson, B. Trout, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 101, 1538-1545 (2012). [PDF]
    11. "Effects of Test Methods on Crevice Corrosion Repassivation Potential Measurements of Alloy 22," X. He, B. Brettmann, H. Jung, Corrosion, 65, 449-460 (2009). [PDF]
    12. "Design of Potent Amorphous Drug Nanoparticles for Rapid Generation of Highly Supersaturated Media," M.E. Matteucci, B.K. Brettmann, T.L Rogers, E.J. Elder, R.O. Williams, K.P. Johnston, Molecular Pharmaceutics, 4, 782-793 (2007). [PDF]
    13. "Coating Materials and Low Haze Heat Rejection Composites," B. Brettmann, A.Mafoud-Familia, C.H. Lai, R. Moerkerke, M. Kamath, U.S. Patent Application, 14/572432(2015). [PDF]
    14. "Composite bearings having a polyimide matrix," N. Mekhilef, B. Czarnecka, J.H. Peet, E. Malefant, B.K. Brettmann, H. Teng, U.S. Patent Application, 14/586569(2015). [PDF]
    15. "Electroprocessing of active pharmaceutical ingredients," B.K. Brettmann, A.S. Myerson, B.L. Trout, U.S. Patent Application, 13/832812 (2013). [PDF]
    16. "Layer processing for pharmaceuticals," B.L. Trout, T.A. Hatton, E. Chang, J.M. Evans, S. Mascia, W. Kim, R.R. Slaughter, Y. Du, H.H. Dhamankar, K.M. Forward, G.C. Rutledge, M. Wang, A.S. Myerson, B.K. Brettmann, N. Padhye, J-H. Chun, U.S. Patent, 9.205,089 (2015). [PDF]
    Patents
    1. "Composite bearing having a polyimide matrix," Mekhilef, N., Czarnecka, B., Peet, J., Malefant, E., Brettmann, B. K., Teng, H. (2018). U.S. Patent No. 9,890,298
    2. "Layer processing for pharmaceuticals," B.L. Trout, T.A. Hatton, E. Chang, J.M. Evans, S. Mascia, W. Kim, R.R. Slaughter, Y. Du, H.H. Dhamankar, K.M. Forward, G.C. Rutledge, M. Wang, A.S. Myerson, B.K. Brettmann, N. Padhye, J-H. Chun, U.S. Patent , 9.205,089 (2015).
    Education
    • PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT - 2012
    • Master's in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT - 2009
    • B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin - 2007.
    Awards

    Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award 2018

    Research Interests

    Dr. Brettmann’s current research interests focus on developing technologies that enable multicomponent, rapidly customizable product design, with a specific focus on polymer systems. Mass customization of manufactured material goods presents significant technical challenges, but could yield significant rewards, similar to advances in “just in time” logistics and on-demand consumer services. Substantial challenges in engineering and design, extending from the complexity of multicomponent functional materials and the difficulty in applying scientific principles to these complex systems, slow material product development.

    Her research group designs and studies new processing and characterization technologies using both experiments and theory, focusing on linking molecular to micron scale phenomena in complex systems to product performance.