Simon A. Rogers

About

Professor Simon A. Rogers is the James W. Westwater Professorial Scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnologies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in 2011. His doctoral research focused on "The Ageing and Rejuvenation of Soft, Glassy Complex Fluids" under the advisement of Prof. Sir Paul Terence Callaghan. Professor Rogers' research centers on the rheology of soft matter, particularly the aging, nonlinear rheology, yielding, large amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS), and recovery rheology of complex fluids. His group investigates the behavior of soft glassy materials and yield stress fluids, which are important in a wide range of applications including cosmetics, food, industrial processes, and 3D printing. Through experimental and theoretical approaches, his work aims to understand the transient and steady-state behaviors of these materials under various rheological protocols, contributing to the development of constitutive models and novel testing methods that probe the recoverable and unrecoverable nature of yielding fluids. Professor Rogers' research also extends to psychorheology, which studies the perception of rheological behavior by humans, bridging the gap between traditional rheological measurements and sensory experience.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Composite material
• Physics
• Mechanics
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Chemistry
• Optics
• Thermodynamics

Selected publications

• Elucidating the G″ overshoot in soft materials with a yield transition via a time-resolved experimental strain decomposition

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 232 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Materials that exhibit yielding behavior are used in many applications, from spreadable foods and cosmetics to direct write three-dimensional printing inks and filled rubbers. Their key design feature is the ability to transition behaviorally from solid to fluid under sufficient load or deformation. Despite its widespread applications, little is known about the dynamics of yielding in real processes, as the nonequilibrium nature of the transition impedes understanding. We demonstrate an iterativ…

  DOI

• Unification of the Rheological Physics of Yield Stress Fluids

  Physical Review Letters · 2021 · 119 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The physics above and below the yield stress is unified by a simple model for viscoplasticity that accounts for the nonlinear rheology of multiple yield stress fluids. The model has a rate-dependent relaxation time, allows for plastic deformation below the yield stress, and indicates that rapid elastic deformation aids yielding. A range of commonly observed rheological behaviors are predicted, including the smooth overshoot in the loss modulus and the recently discovered contributions from recov…

  DOI

• Large amplitude oscillatory shear flow: Microstructural assessment of polymeric systems

  Progress in Polymer Science · 2022 · 115 citations

  DOI

• Brittle and ductile yielding in soft materials

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2024-05-22 · 38 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Many soft materials yield under mechanical loading, but how this transition from solid-like behavior to liquid-like behavior occurs can vary significantly. Understanding the physics of yielding is of great interest for the behavior of biological, environmental, and industrial materials, including those used as inks in additive manufacturing and muds and soils. For some materials, the yielding transition is gradual, while others yield abruptly. We refer to these behaviors as being ductile and bri…

  PublisherDOI

• Suspension electrospinning of decellularized extracellular matrix: A new method to preserve bioactivity

  Bioactive Materials · 2024-08-28 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  Decellularized extracellular matrices (dECM) have strong regenerative potential as tissue engineering scaffolds; however, current clinical options for dECM scaffolds are limited to freeze-drying its native form into sheets. Electrospinning is a versatile scaffold fabrication technique that allows control of macro- and microarchitecture. It remains challenging to electrospin dECM, which has led researchers to either blend it with synthetic materials or use enzymatic digestion to fully solubilize…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Time-dependent Structures of Soft Materials under Flow: A Rheo-Scattering Approach to the Study of Thixotropic Yield Stress Fluids

  NSF · $525k · 2019–2025

Frequent coauthors

• M. P. Lettinga

  KU Leuven

  83 shared

• Olivera Korculanin

  RWTH Aachen University

  77 shared

• Gavin J. Donley

  Georgetown University

  77 shared

• Bernd Struth

  Paul Scherrer Institute

  55 shared

• H. Hirsemann

  Universität Hamburg

  54 shared

• Daniel Hermida‐Merino

  European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

  54 shared

• Fabian Westermeier

  Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY

  50 shared

• U. Wagner

  Paul Scherrer Institute

  44 shared

Labs

• The Simon Rogers Group for Soft Matter ResearchPI

  Soft Matter Research

Awards & honors

• National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2019)
• New Investigator Award, ACS, Petroleum Research Fund (2018)
• Second place prize for post-doc poster competition (2013)
• Bingham Fluid Medal for outstanding conference contribution…
• Award for outstanding young researcher oral presentation (20…

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