Abraham D. Stroock

About

Abraham D. Stroock is the Gordon L. Dibble '50 Professor at the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. After earning a bachelor's degree in Physics at Cornell, he spent two years in France working in the research division of Electricite de France and completed a master's degree at the University of Paris VI and XI in Solid State Physics. He then pursued a PhD in the Chemistry department at Harvard University under George Whitesides. Since joining Cornell in 2003 as an Assistant Professor, he has focused his research on manipulating dynamics and chemical processes on micrometer scales. His lab's efforts include studying mechanisms for manipulating liquids inspired by plants, fundamental properties of liquid water at negative pressure, biophysical processes controlling vascular development and their applications in tissue engineering, and fluid mechanical processes on small scales relevant to chemical processes. His work spans microfluidics, colloids, interfacial science, heat and mass transfer, sensors, actuators, and sustainable energy systems, with applications in bioengineering, biomedical engineering, drug delivery, nanomedicine, and tissue engineering.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Botany
• Atmospheric sciences
• Biology
• Physics
• Statistical physics
• Environmental science
• Meteorology

Selected publications

• A minimally disruptive method for measuring water potential in planta using hydrogel nanoreporters

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021-05-31 · 66 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Significance Gaps in our ability to document local water relations in leaves compromise our ability to build complete models of leaf and plant function and our understanding of ecophysiological phenomena, such as response and adaptation to drought. Macroscopically, leaf water potential has been shown to impact vegetative growth and yield, susceptibility to disease, and, in extreme drought, plant viability, making it a promising candidate trait to improve water-use efficiency in plants. In this p…

  PublisherDOI

• Monitoring Stem Water Potential with an Embedded Microtensiometer to Inform Irrigation Scheduling in Fruit Crops

  Horticulturae · 2022-12-16 · 41 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The water status of fruit and nut crops is critical to the high productivity, quality and value of these crops. Water status is often estimated and managed with indirect measurements of soil moisture and models of evapotranspiration. However, cultivated trees and vines have characteristics and associated cultural practices that complicate such methods, particularly variable discontinuous canopies, and extensive but low-density, variable root systems with relatively high hydraulic resistance. Dir…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A signal-like role for floral humidity in a nocturnal pollination system

  Nature Communications · 2022-12-15 · 39 citations

  articleOpen access

  Previous studies have considered floral humidity to be an inadvertent consequence of nectar evaporation, which could be exploited as a cue by nectar-seeking pollinators. By contrast, our interdisciplinary study of a night-blooming flower, Datura wrightii, and its hawkmoth pollinator, Manduca sexta, reveals that floral relative humidity acts as a mutually beneficial signal in this system. The distinction between cue- and signal-based functions is illustrated by three experimental findings. First,…

  PublisherDOI

• Data-driven robust model predictive control framework for stem water potential regulation and irrigation in water management

  Control Engineering Practice · 2021-05-14 · 35 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Extreme undersaturation in the intercellular airspace of leaves: a failure of Gaastra or Ohm?

  Annals of Botany · 2022 · 30 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Recent reports of extreme levels of undersaturation in internal leaf air spaces have called into question one of the foundational assumptions of leaf gas exchange analysis, that leaf air spaces are effectively saturated with water vapour at leaf surface temperature. Historically, inferring the biophysical states controlling assimilation and transpiration from the fluxes directly measured by gas exchange systems has presented a number of challenges, including: (1) a mismatch in scales…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• PFI:AIR - TT: Development of Tools and Methods for Extended Maturity Analysis of Concrete

  NSF · $200k · 2015–2017

• SST: Optimizing Microfluidic Transport and Magnetic Sensing for Detection of Detection of Pseudomonas Syringae

  NSF · $746k · 2005–2009

• CAREER: Fundamental Studies to Advance the Science and Engineering of Water at Negative Pressures

  NSF · $400k · 2008–2013

Frequent coauthors

• George M. Whitesides

  35 shared

• Olivier Vincent

  27 shared

• Nakwon Choi

  Korean Association Of Science and Technology Studies

  17 shared

• Donald L. Koch

  17 shared

• Ying Zheng

  Yangzhou University

  15 shared

• Claudia Fischbach

  Cornell University

  15 shared

• David A. Sessoms

  Cornell University

  15 shared

• Pierre Lidon

  Université de Bordeaux

  15 shared

Education

• PhD, Chemistry

  Harvard University

  2002

• BA, Physics

  Cornell University

  1997

Awards & honors

• Henry and Camille Dreyfus New faculty award (2003)
• Office of Naval Research's Young Investigator award (2004)
• 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (2006)
• Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award (2006)
• MIT Technology Review's TR35 list of top innovators under 35…

Similar researchers at Cornell University

• Fengqi Youh-83
• Stephen B. Popeh-83
• Rebecca J. Barthelmieh-62