News

2019

Dec 2019	Recent graduate Dr. Qijue Wang traveled to the 2019 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston, Ma. His poster titled “Nanofibrils as the Basic Building Blocks of Natural Spider Silk” was nominated for Best Poster.
Nov 2019	Graduation: Qijue Wang graduated with his Ph.D. His dissertation was titled “Nanofibrils as the Basic Building Blocks of Spider Silk”.
Oct 2019	New Publication: Chemistry of Materials (2019) — Amin, Attwater, Pike, Williamson, Kranbuehl, Schniepp* "High-Purity Boron Nitride Nanotubes via High-Yield Hydrocarbon Solvent Processing". Here, we propose a mild, high-yield method that removes >99% of the h-BN impurities without any apparent loss or damage to the BNNTs. (paper).
Sep 2019	New Publication: Fuel (2019) — Dickinson, Aravind, Higgins, Berg, Suijkerbuijk, Schniepp* "Using atomic force spectroscopy to study oil/mineral interactions at reservoir temperatures and pressures". We are the first ones to use newly developed crude-oil fictionalized AFM probes to investigate crude oil/brine/rock interactions at high pressures and high temperatures. (paper).
Jul 2019	New Publication: Carbon (2019) — Zhang, Schniepp*, Adamson "Characterization of graphene oxide: Variations in reported approaches". This review summarizes the current state of GO characterization and advocates for the development of more standard approaches to characterization. (paper).
Jul 2019	Incoming PhD student Ben Skopic was awarded the Graduate Arts and Sciences Dean's Recruitment Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded for outstanding accomplishments and for future potential.
May 2019	Graduation: Will Dickinson graduated with his PhD on “Interfacial Forces of 2D Materials at the Oil-Water Interface”.
May 2019	Graduation: John Gardner graduated with his PhD on “Additive Manufacturing of Nanomaterials Based Hierarchical Structures”.
May 2019	Graduation: Undergraduate Ben Skopic graduated with his BS in Physics and doing senior research on “Mechanics of a Bio-Inspired One-Dimensional Thin-Film Mechanical Metamaterial”.
Apr 2019	Qijue Wang traveled to Phoenix, AZ to present his work on “Vibrational Spectroscopy of Nanofibrillar Spider Silk” at the MRS conference.
Mar 2019	PhD student Qijue Wang was the only Arts & Sciences winner of the International Student Achievement Award.
Mar 2019	PhD students Qijue Wang, Dinidu Perera, and Avishi Abeywickrama present at William and Mary's Graduate Research Symposium.
Feb 2019	12-minute radio feature of our silk research titled Bulletproof Spider Silk. Aired Feb. 15 on NPR's show “With Good Reason” hosted by Sarah McConnell. (Episode Link)
Jan 2019	New Publication: JOM (2019) — Wang, Schniepp* "Nanofibrils as Building Blocks of Silk Fibers: Critical Review of the Experimental Evidence". We experimentally determined that recluse silk is entirely made of nanofibrils. (paper).

2018

Nov 2018	Discussion of the recent ACS Macro Letters paper reaches #1 on the engineering subreddit for two days receiving over 32,000 upvotes and 800 comments. (Link to thread)
Oct 2018	PhD student Dinidu Perera participated in the 3MT Competition and won second place and the peoples' choice award with “Making Spider Man's Silk Ropes a Reality”.
Oct 2018	New Publication: ACS Macro Letters (2018) — Wang, Schniepp* "Strength of Recluse Spider's Silk Originates from Nanofibrils". We experimentally determined that recluse silk is entirely made of nanofibrils. (paper).
May 2018	New Publication: Nanoscale (2018) — Dickinson, Kumar, Adamson, Schniepp* "High-throughput optical thickness and size characterization of 2D materials". We developed a simple method to measure the thickness of many graphene sheets with atomic precision (press release).
Apr 2018	Undergraduate student Chloe Walsh successfully defended her honors thesis, “Self-Assembly of Native Spider Silk Protein” on April 25.
Apr 2018	Nanomaterials & Imaging Lab at William & Mary Earth Day 2018: We highlighted the ability of silk to replace synthetic plastics and the importance of our research to achieve this goal.
Mar 2018	Ph. D. student Qijue Wang presented his work on Mar. 5, in APS 2018 March Meeting in Los Angeles, CA.
Mar 2018	Prof. Schniepp presents an invited talk on “Toughness-Enhancing Linear Metastructure in the Recluse Spider’s Nanoribbon Silk” in the Bio Nano Interfaces and Engineering Applications Symposium at TMS 2018: Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Phoenix, AR.
Jan 2018	Ph. D. student Qijue Wang is awarded Arts & Sciences Office of Graduate Studies and Research/Graduate Student Association Conference Funding, William & Mary.
Jan 2018	Ph. D. student Qijue Wang is selected to present his work about the structure of recluse spider silk in APS 2018 March Meeting in Los Angeles, CA, Mar. 5-9.

2017

Dec 2017	Prof. Schniepp joins the editorial board of PLOS ONE, one of the world's largest scientific journals as an Academic Editor.
Dec 2017	Prof. Schniepp speaks at the 7th International Conference on Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues about our most recent results on the hierarchical structure of silk.
Dec 2017	Prof. Schniepp presents four papers at the 2017 Fall MRS Meeting in Boston, MA on topics including the brown recluse ribbon silk, thermal interface materials, and interfacial properties of graphene.
Nov 2017	Ph. D. student Qijue Wang receives an International Student Opportunity Award from the Reves Center for International Studies, William and Mary.
Sep 2017	New publication: Polymer (2017) — Hocker, Hudson-Smith, Smith, Komatsu, Dickinson, Schniepp & Kranbuehl: "Graphene oxide reduces the hydrolytic degradation in polyamide-11". A tiny amount of graphene makes plastics more durable.
Sep 2017	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited lecture on “The Strong, Tough & Sticky Silk Nanoribbons of the Recluse Spider: Revealing the Structure and Properties” in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Tufts University, Medford, MA.
Sep 2017	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited lecture on “Synthetic and Biogenic 2D Materials: Interfacial Properties and Characterization” in the Chemical and Bioengineering Department at The Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO.
Aug 2017	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk on “Graphene as a two-dimensional surfactant” at the Fall 2017 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.
Mar 2017	The U.S. National Science Foundation produces a video feature of our breakthrough on the loops of the brown recluse spider in their Science Now—Science 360 show (Episode 50).
Feb 2017	Discovery Channel Canada] airs a TV feature of our brown recluse looped silk discovery in their science show Daily Planet (7:00 pm show on February 15).
Feb 2017	BBC radio interview: On Feb. 20, the BBC aired a 5-minute radio interview with Prof. Schniepp on the group's recent breakthough on the looped recluse silk. Now available here (The Naked Scientists).
Feb 2017	ABC Australia radio interview: On Feb. 24, the BBC interview was also aired on the other side of the world. Now available here (The Naked Scientists).
Feb 2017	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk on the “Toughness-Enhancing Linear Metastructure in the Recluse Spider’s Nanoribbon Silk” at the Bio Nano Interfaces and Engineering Applications Symposium at the TMS 2017: Annual Meeting & Exhibition, San Diego, CA.
Feb 2017	The Naked Scientists, a British science podcast, features Prof. Schniepp's BBC interview on their web page, including a written story and images: link.
Feb 2017	The Daily Press has a video feature on our silk research.
Feb 2017	The Daily Press interviews Prof. Schniepp as part of their front page story on our paper on the loops in the silk of the recluse spider.
Feb 2017	New publication: Materials Horizons (2017) — Koebley, Vollrath & Schniepp*: "Toughness-enhancing metastructure in the recluse spider's looped ribbon silk". Ribbon silk has the unique ability to enhance toughness and maintain strength via looping.
Jan 2017	Our PhD student Sean Koebley gives an invited talk on “The looped, 2D ribbon silk of the brown recluse spider: unique model and inspiration for design” at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.

2016

Dec 2016	New story on the William & Mary web page featuring our team member Sean Koebley as one of the two founding members of William & Mary Journal Club, a weekly gathering of William & Mary graduate students for sharing research.
Nov 2016	Prof. Schniepp and graduate students Qijue Wang and Will Dickinson present several papers at the 2016 Fall MRS Meeting in Boston, MA on topics including the brown recluse ribbon silk, optical characterization of 2D materials/graphene, and oil recovery.
Oct 2016	Our PhD student Sean Koebley gives an invited presentation “The looped, ribbon silk of the brown recluse spider: unique model and inspiration for design”, in the Chemistry Seminar, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia.
Oct 2016	We have two openings for new PhD students in our group. Starting date: Fall 2017. For more information, click here. Application Deadline: February 2017.
Oct 2016	Invited Presentation: Our PhD student Sean Koebley presents the most recent breakthroughs in his investigations of the brown recluse ribbons silk in front of the William & Mary Graduate Studies Advisory Board.
Oct 2016	New publication: Energy & Fuels (2016) — Dickinson, Suijkerbuijk, Berg, Marcelis & Schniepp* "Atomic Force Spectroscopy Using Colloidal Tips Functionalized with Dried Crude Oil: A Versatile Tool to Investigate Oil–Mineral Interactions". Press Release.
Oct 2016	Prof. Schniepp presents an invited talk “Revealing the Secrets of Nanomaterials: Pushing the Limits of Performance and Functionality” at National Institute of Aerospace Meeting, Virginia, U.S.A. (October 7, 2016).
Sep 2016	William & Mary features our Lab in a news story about the new ISC building. Our highly sensitive work on atomic force microscopy is highlighted.
Sep 2016	New publication: Surface Innovations (2016) — Dickinson, Kranbuehl & Schniepp* "Assessing Graphene Oxide/Polymer Interfacial Interactions via Peeling Test".
May 2016	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “The Strong, Tough & Sticky Silk Nanoribbons of the Brown Recluse — Revealing the Structure and Properties of a Quasi-2D Protein Material”, Air Force Research Laboratory Seminar, Wright–Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.
Apr 2016	The physics department at the College of William & Mary has named Prof. Schniepp a Courtesy Associate Professor of Physics.
Apr 2016	New publication: Polymer (2016) — Hocker, Hudson-Smith, Schniepp & Kranbuehl* "Enhancing polyimide's water barrier properties through addition of functionalized graphene oxide".
Apr 2016	New publication: Nanoscale (2016) — Neugirg, Koebley, Schniepp* & Fery* "AFM-based mechanical characterization of single nanofibres".
Feb 2016	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk on the latest Spider Nanoribbon Silk research at the Bio Nano Interfaces and Engineering Applications Symposium at the TMS 2016: Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Nashville, TN.

2015

Dec 2015	Prof. Schniepp delivers an invited Keynote Speech at the 6th International Conference on Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues.
Dec 2015	Sean Koebley's poster on the toughness of the brown recluse spider was nominated for Best Poster Award at the 2015 MRS Fall National Meeting in Boston, MA.
Nov 2015	We present several papers at the 2015 Fall MRS Meeting in Boston, MA on topics including the brown recluse ribbon silk, self-assembly of silk molecules, graphene/polyimide coatings, and graphene-enhanced nylon with extended lifetime.
Oct 2015	Our research on the silk of the brown recluse spider is highlighted by the ideation magazine article: "Unraveling the secret of silk that's more alive than dead".
Sep 2015	Cover Story in the Daily Press featuring our recently published research on shear-induced self-assembly of molecularly thin silk fibrils. There is also a corresponding Video Interview.
Sep 2015	Hannes Schniepp is named a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Nanoscience with Advanced Technology (Verizona Publisher).
Aug 2015	Ph. D. student Qijue Wang receives the 2015 Fall Graduate Studies Advisory Board Recruitment Fellowship.
Aug 2015	The National Science Foundation (NSF) has made a 4-year, $324,000 award from the DMREF program (Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future) to Prof. Schniepp, starting Oct. 2015.
Aug 2015	New publication: "Silk Reconstitution Disrupts Fibroin Self-Assembly" by authors Koebley, Greving, Vollrath & Schniepp*, just appeared in Biomacromolecules. More information in our Press Release.
Jul 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “The Strong and Sticky Silk Nano-Ribbons of the Recluse Spider: Structure, Properties, and Formation of A Quasi-2D Protein Material” at the Institute for Building Materials, ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
Jun 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “The Strong and Sticky Silk Nano-Ribbons of the Recluse Spider: Structure, Properties, and Formation of A Quasi-2D Protein Material”, Max-Plack Institute of the Science of Light, Sandoghdar Division, Erlangen, Germany.
May 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Probing Oil–Mineral Interactions Under Reservoir Conditions Using Atomic Force Spectroscopy”, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
May 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “The Brown Recluse Spider’s Super-Strong & Sticky Silk Nanoribbons”, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
May 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives and invited talk “From Molecular Self-Assembly to High-Performance Material: Studying Spider Silk Across the Length Scales”, Department of Health Science and Technology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
Apr 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Brown Recluse Spider’s Nanometer-Scale Ribbons of Strong Sticky Silk”, Adolphe-Merkle-Institute, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Apr 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “From Molecular Self-Assembly to High-Performance Material: Studying Spider Silk Across the Length Scales”, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
Mar 2015	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Brown Recluse Spider’s Nanometer-Scale Ribbons of Strong Sticky Silk”, Physics Colloquium, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
Feb 2015	For the term 2015–2018, The College of William & Mary has designated Prof. Schniepp the Adina Allen Term Distinguished Associate Professor of Applied Science in recognition for his contributions in teaching and research.

2014

Dec 2014	"Highly Cited" Status for 5th Paper: Our 2012 paper “Methods of Graphite Exfoliation” has now reached “highly cited” status, as it is in the top 1% of all papers in Materials Science. This is Prof. Schniepp's 5th “highly cited” paper.
Dec 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Probing Oil–Mineral Interactions Under Reservoir Conditions Using Atomic Force Spectroscopy”, Shell International Exploration, The Hague, The Netherlands.
Oct 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Brown Recluse Spider’s Nanometer-Scale Ribbons of Strong Sticky Silk”, Materials Colloquium, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland.
Oct 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Brown Recluse Spider’s Nanometer-Scale Ribbons of Strong Sticky Silk”, Universität Basel, Biologie-Colloquium, Basel, Switzerland.
Oct 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives a keynote lecture on “Spider Silk Ribbons — Model System for A Natural High-Performance Material”, at the 2nd Virginia Soft Matter Workshop, at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.
Sep 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Spider Silk Nanoribbons — A Prototype for Strong and Tough Protein Films”, Sino-Swiss Science and Technology Corporation Workshop, ETH Zürich.
Aug 2014	Ph. D. student Qijue Wang receives the 2014 Fall Graduate Studies Advisory Board Recruitment Fellowship.
Aug 2014	Ph. D. student Sean Koebley receives a 2014–2015 Graduate STEM Research Fellowship, Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC).
Aug 2014	Prof. Schniepp joins the Department of Materials Science (D-MATL) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, for one year as a guest professor, hosted by Prof. André Studart.
May 2014	Prof. Schniepp is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award from the U. S. National Science Foundation (award # DMR-1352542). The award will provide a total of $450,000 over 5 years to investigate the ribbon silk of the loxosceles spider.
Apr 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “From Molecular Self-Assembly to High-Performance Material: Studying Spider Silk Across the Length Scales”, 1st Annual Colloids and Surfaces Symposium at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.
Mar 2014	Discovery Channel Canada airs a TV feature of our brown recluse silk project in their science show Daily Planet (7:00 pm show on March 10).
Mar 2014	William & Mary produces the 4-minute video story "In the lab: 'Milking' brown recluse spiders for silk" about our work on brown recluse spider silk.
Feb 2014	Our work reporting the first large-scale exfoliation of hexagonal Boron Nitride nanosheets is published in Small.
Feb 2014	Hannes Schniepp is awarded Tenure at the College of William & Mary and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
Feb 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited presentation “2D High-Performance Nanomaterials:From Graphene to Spider Silk”, Nanomaterials Workshop, National Institute of Aerospace, Langley, VA.
Jan 2014	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited presentation “Converting the Traditional Classroom Experience Into a Video Stream For Inverted Learning”, eLearning Community Meeting, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA.

2013

Dec 2013	Advanced Materials features our brown recluse silk paper out of all communications of the Dec 23 issue with a full-page frontispiece.
Nov 2013	We present several papers at the 2013 Fall MRS Meeting in Boston, MA on topics including self-organization of silk protein and the loxosceles ribbon silk.
Oct 2013	The Daily Press, Hampton Roads' big newspaper, prominently features our research on the recluse spider silk with a long online article, accompanied with pictures and a video interview. In the print edition, our story had a large title page feature in the Oct 15 issue.
Oct 2013	Chemical & Engineering News feature: C & E News features our paper on the recluse spider silk in their October 28 issue.
Oct 2013	Virginia Gazette brown recluse feature: Our research on the silk of the brown recluse spider is featured with a story and photos in their October 19 issue.
Oct 2013	PhD student Sean R. Koebley gives an invited talk “Brown Recluse Spider’s Nanometer Scale Ribbons of Stiff, Extensible Silk”, at the Rotary Club at City Center, Newport News, Virginia.
Oct 2013	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “The Brown Recluse Spider’s Nano-Ribbons of Strong Sticky Silk”, William & Mary PhysicsFest, Williamsburg, Virginia.
Oct 2013	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Soft-Contact AFM of Surfactant Assemblies at the Solid/Liquid Interface Revealing Local Surface Chemistry”, Seminar at Shell International Exploration, The Hague, The Netherlands.
Oct 2013	Daily Press Video Interview: Interview with Prof. Schniepp about our research on the recluse spider silk. This is goes along with their long article, accompanied with pictures.
Oct 2013	Our research on the silk of the brown recluse spider is highlighted by the ideation magazine article: "Unraveling the secret of silk that's more alive than dead".
Oct 2013	The WIRED magazine highlights our research on the silk of the brown recluse spider with an exciting article.
Sep 2013	The prestigious journal Advanced Materials accepts our landmark article on the silk of the recluse spider. We are the first to study the mechanical properties of this exciting material. See our Press Release for more information.
Jul 2013	Hannes Schniepp will serve as the new Director of Graduate Studies for the Applied Science Department, starting September 01, 2013.
Jun 2013	Hannes Schniepp is named a member of the editorial board of the new journal Advances in Chemistry (Hindawi).
May 2013	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk at NASA's Langley Research Center on 2D-High-Performance Materials.
May 2013	Pei Pang joins our team as a research undergraduate student. Pei is currently a sophomore in William & Mary's chemistry department.
Jan 2013	Hannes Schniepp is named a member of the editorial board of the journal Graphene (American Scientific Publishers).
Jan 2013	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited lecture on in the Soft Matter Seminar in the Physics Department of Georgetown University.

2012

Dec 2012	We congratulate our team member Minzhen Cai for graduating with a Ph.D. from the Applied Science Department at William & Mary.
Nov 2012	We present four papers at the 2012 Fall MRS Meeting in Boston, MA on topics including self-organization of silk protein, graphene-based nanocomposites, molecular surfactant self-assembly on graphene, and graphene oxide as a band gap material.
Oct 2012	Our paper on Graphite Exfoliation was the third-most read article in the entire Journal of Materials Chemistry in September 2012 — within days after online publication (September 12, 2012).
Sep 2012	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited talk “Functionalized Graphene — Building Block for High-Performance Polymer Nanocomposites”, DuPont seminar, Richmond, Virginia.
Sep 2012	Our paper on improved titanium surface treatments for implants gets published in The International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Implants "Effects of Coating a Titanium Alloy with Fibronectin on the Expression of Osteoblast Gene Markers in the MC3T3 Osteoprogenitor Cell Line" Int. J. Oral Maxillofac. Implants 27, 1081–1090 (2012).
Aug 2012	We publish a new paper on graphene exfoliation in The Journal of Materials Chemistry: "Methods of Graphite Exfoliation" J. Mater. Chem. 22, 24992—25002 (2012).
Aug 2012	Ph. D. student Sean Koebley receives a 2012–2013 Graduate STEM Research Fellowship, Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC).
Aug 2012	We present three papers at the 244th ACS National Fall Meeting in Philadelphia, PA on the topics of polymer nanocomposites, oil–mineral interactions, and molecular self-organization on graphene.
Jul 2012	Our paper on molecular self-organization on graphene gets published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C: "Charge-Driven Selective Adsorption of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate on Graphene Oxide Visualized by Atomic Force Microscopy" J. Phys. Chem. C 116, 20080–20085 (2012).
May 2012	We congratulate our team member Daniel Thorpe for graduating with a B.S. from the Biology Department at William & Mary. Daniel will continue his studies at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University.
May 2012	We congratulate our team member James Nebeker for graduating with a B.S. from the Physics Department at William & Mary. James will move on to the Graduate Program of Georgetown University.
May 2012	Prof. Schniepp gives an invited presentation at the E-MRS Spring Meeting in Strasbourg/France ("Biomaterials" Symposium).
May 2012	"Lighter, Stronger, Better" — our research on graphene-based high-performance polymer nanocomposites is featured in the ideation magazine.
Apr 2012	Our paper on orientational order of surfactant micelles on gold gets published in Nano LIFE: "Phonon-Induced Anisotropic Dispersion Forces On A Metallic Substrate" Nano LIFE 02, 1240001 (2012).
Mar 2012	We have a new publication on a novel solvent system for graphene (J. Am. Chem. Soc.): "Stabilization of Graphene Sheets by a Structured Benzene/Hexafluorobenzene Mixed Solvent". J. Am. Chem. Soc., 134, 5018–5021 (2012).
Mar 2012	"Making spider-sense" — our ground breaking discoveries on the silk protein are featured in the ideation magazine.
Feb 2012	Our paper on the silk worm protein gets published in Biomacromolecules: "Shear-Induced Self-Assembly of Native Silk Proteins into Fibrils Studied by Atomic Force Microscopy". Biomacromolecules, 13, 676–682 (2012).

2007–2011