March 2026

APS 2026

Foluso Akin-Ige (PhD candidate) and Jahilit Flores (MS student) represented SMPD and presented their work the American Physical Society in Denver, Colorado.

February 2026

UMiami News Feature

Maria Calderon was featured in the Umiami news regarding her work on the rheology of injectable dermal products

https://news.miami.edu/coe/stories/2026/01/the-science-behind-the-syringe.html

FLSCC Trivia Night Success

5 of our SMPD lab members attended the FLSCC chapter meeting. With this meetings focus on education, a jeopardy style trivia game was played. Our lab members (Maria Calderon, Casey Posner, Samaria Popote, Jahilit Flores and Alexa Bronkaj) got display their technical knowledge in an industry setting.

Industry Engagement Recognition

Congratulations to graduate student Casey Posner for being awarded the Junior Member Chapter Merit Award by the FLSCC

January 2026

Welcome New Members

The SMPD lab is excited to welcome all of our new undergraduate research members!

PepTalks 2026 Oral Presentation

PhD student Maria Calderon Presented her work on Monoclonal Antibodies at PepTalk 2026 in San Diego, California

2026 UMiami CAST Workshop

SMPD students has the opportunity to partake in the CAST workshop hosted at the University of Miami. Both Logan-Marie and Jahilit were able to present posters on their research.

2026 UMiami CAST Workshop - Poster Winner

Congratulations Jahilit Flores for placing at the  CAST workshop for her work in "Engineering Friction-Activated Microcapsules for Controlled Release of Lipophilic Material".

December 2025

Three of our MS Product Design students (Samaria Popete, Yael Faroud, and Jahilit Flores) presented their research at the 79th Annual Scientific Meeting in New York, NY

Congratulations to SMPD members Shawn Shiwnath and Johnny Gleason on their graduation from the University of Miami! 

November 2025

SMPD PhD student Maria Calderon and Junior Reagan Latimer participated in the AIChE K-12 outreach completion where they placed 1st with their entry "Link it Up: How Polymers Shape our World" for grades 3-5 Category!  

October 2025

Maria Calderon and Foluso Akin-Ige will be presenting at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting in Boston, MA occurring November 2-6, 2025. Make sure to stop by their talks to see more of the amazing work they have been doing! 

Congratulations to Product Design Masters student, Jahilit Flores, on her acceptance to the Society of Cosmetic Chemists Annual Meeting for her poster on friction activated microcapsules! 

SMPD Principal Investigator, Dr. Samiul Amin, will be giving an invited talk at the 2025 Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) Science Symposium & Expo! Dr. Amin will be speaking on Accelerated Product Design of Safer and Eco-Friendly Consumer Products through Expert Formulation Science Guided AI/Machine Learning on October 28th in Arlington, VA! 

Undergraduate SMPD lab member, Reagan Latimer, and PhD student, Maria Calderon have been a part of the AIChE STEM outreach competition, where they are using concrete activities and visuals to explain polymer science. 

September 2025

Our SMPD team is expanding! This semester we are welcoming 6 new MS Product Design students as well as 6 undergraduate members! See our 'lab members' section to learn more about our new students! To those joining the lab, welcome! To those returning, welcome back!

Second year PhD student will be attending the Florida Society of Cosmetic Chemists Sunscreen Symposium where she will be sharing her insights on Photoprotective Emulsions Using Low Molecular Weight Biosurfactants. If you're there, take a moment to chat with her about her work!

Congratulations are in order for both Maria Calderon Vaca and Casey Posner. Both of our second year PhD students have successfully passed their Qualifying Exams on Friday, August 2025. Congrats on conquering this milestone!

The SMPD group had an excellent time at the American Chemical Society Fall 2025 Meeting. Monday started off with an exciting invited talk by Dr. Amin on the use of AI and Machine Learning in product development! Foluso Akin-Ige showed a wonderful poster at Monday's evening session. Tuesday was followed up with Foluso's oral presentation discussing unique sulfate-free systems using biopolymers and biobased surfactants. We ended our conference with Casey Posner's poster showing her research on photoprotective emulsions containing glycolipids. We had a great time and thank you to those who attended our presentations!

August 2025

Three members of the Soft Matter Product Design research group will not only be attending the ACS Fall 2025 meeting, but presenting as well! Join Dr. Samiul Amin as he gives an invited talk on AI/machine learning for development of sustainable formulation systems. Foluso Akin-Ige will be showcasing a talk and poster on polymer-surfactant interactions and Casey Posner will share a poster of using biosurfactants in photoprotective emulsions. We hope to see you there!

SMPD student, Foluso Akin-Ige, was featured in the News@TheU newsletter displaying one of the injectable hydrogel formulations she has been studying in the lab.

July 2025

We are pleased to share another the publication of our paper "Characterizing the rheological dynamics of sulfate-free surfactant mixtures of cocamidopropyl betaine-sodium methyl cocoyl taurate across composition, pH, and ionic conditions". 

This publication is the result of a collaboration with Henkel and could not have been done without their expertise and support

Interested in reading the article? Click here!

June 2025

We are excited to share our paper in collaboration with Boehrinnger Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. "Temperature and excipient mediated modulation of monoclonal antibodyinteractions revealed by kD, rheology, and Raman spectroscopy" has been published!

Interested in reading the article? Click here!

We are excited to share Maria Calderon will be giving a presentation titled “Optimizing Monoclonal Antibody Structure and Dynamics through Formulation Variables: Insights from Diffusing Wave Spectroscopy and Microfluidic Analysis” at the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston, MA. 

We are excited to share Foluso Akin-Ige will be giving a talk titled “Effect of biobased polymer-surfactant interactions on rheological response in a sulfate-free micellar system” at the ACS Fall 2025 Meeting in Washinton, DC. Foluso has also been invited to share a poster on the topic! 

The new M.S. in Product design flyer is now available! Take a look to learn more and connect with us! 

We're excited to share Casey Posner will be presenting her poster on “Photoprotective emulsions using low molecular weight biosurfactants” at the ACS Fall 2025 Meeting in Washinton, DC 

May 2025

Dr. Amin will give an Invited Keynote Talk at MedStar Health-Georgetown University Collaborative Center for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Research and Education at the AI Colab Spring Summit in Washington DC on May 22, 2025.

The talk will be on:

Accelerated Product Design of Safer, Healthier and Eco-friendly Consumer Products and Foods through Expert Formulation Science Based AI/Machine Learning

Linkedin Post

One of our students, Casey Posner, will be attending the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists annual Suppliers Day in New York City! Find Casey and chat with her about our lab, our research, and our Masters in Product Design!

Dr. Amin will give an invited talk at the 29th ACS Green Chemistry Institute Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Pittsburgh June 23-26,2025

The talk will be on:

Rapid acceleration of biosurfactant and biobased surfactant cleanser product design through utilization of AI/ML based physico-chemical performance optimization.

Linkedin Post

Dr. Amin and other members of our lab will be attending the ACS Fall 2025 meeting in Washington, DC August 17-21!