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Eugenia Kumacheva

Eugenia Kumacheva is a chemistry and material science professor at the University of Toronto and a Canada Research Chair in Advanced Functional Materials She mainly focuses on the fundamental and applied science of polymers, polymers of biological systems, nano science, liquid crystals, microfluidics, and gas-liquid reactions and physical processes in liquid environment. In 2011, she published her book "Microfluidic Reactors for Polymer Particles " cooperated with her partner, Piotr Garstecki. She is a tier 1 Canadian researcher in Advanced Polymer Materials and also a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada

Biography and Career

Early life and Education

Eugenia Kumacheva was born in Odessa, Soviet Union. She received her bachelor degree with Cum Laude and M.Sc. degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology, where now called Technical University, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Following years after, she did her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry of Polymers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Science. In 1985, she joined the Department of Chemistry as a research associate at the Moscow State University. In 1991-1994, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Jacob Klein at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, in studying of surface forces in thin layers of simple liquids and polymers. In 1995, she was the part of the group of Professor Mitchel Winnik in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto, where she was involved in studies of morphology of multicomponent polymer systems. In 1996, she was invited to join the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor, and In 2005, she became a full-time chemistry professor at the University of Toronto up until now.

Forschung

The majority of Kumacheva’s work focuses on polymer science, nanoscience, microfluidics, polymers in biological systems, and gas-liquid reactions. A repeated theme of her work is the emulation of biological tissues, fluids, and environments with polymers and nanomaterials. Kumacheva has been involved with important developments in modeling the biological conditions of myocardial infarctions, strokes, pulmonary embolism, and various other blood related disorders or health conditions using polymers and nano-materials. Some of this work is related to mimicking blood vessels in order to gain a greater understanding of the chemistry and physics involved in blood clots. Kumacheva has been involved in research exploring the potential of microbubbles, a gas enclosed by a natural or synthetic polymer for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications such as targeted drug delivery and molecular imaging. An additional medical application of Kumacheva’s work is the creation of hydrogels and various other chemical environments to either support the life of a stem cell, affect necrotic heart tissue as well as deter the metastasis of cancer cells. Eugenia has been involved in research involving cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and fluorescent latex nanoparticles (NPs), as well as self-assembling nanocubes. 

Quantifying the efficiency of CO2 capture by Lewis pairs

Much of her work relates to climate change and lowering CO2 levels. She has collaborated with Doug Stephan (University of Toronto), to investigate the behavior of frustrated Lewis pairs used to separate various elements of natural gas; namely, ethylene from a mixture of ethylene and methane. This work has great industrial importance due to the need for efficient and precise separation of petroleum compounds in various industries.

Study of Extraction and Recycling of Switchable HydrophilicitySolvents in an Oscillatory Microfluidic Platform

In another study involving frustrated Lewis pairs, Kumacheva used them to quantify the efficiency of binding CO2 emissions. Measuring the amount of CO2 bound by the Lewis pairs provided information on the amount that was captured into solution. Some of the reactions in CO2 uptake require solvents with different properties, but it is expensive to prepare multiple solvents. As a solution to this problem, Kumacheva has worked on solvents with adjustable properties such as hydrophilicity called switchable hydrophilicity solvents (SHS). For example, a sterically hindered, large, hydrophobic molecule (Dibutylethanol Amine – DBAE) being protonated to become hydrophilic as necessitated by the reaction process

Honors and Awards

Year	Award
1992	Minerva Foundation Fellowship (Germany)
1994	Imperial College Visiting Fellowship (UK)
1999	Premier Research Excellence Award (Canada)
2000	International Chorafas Foundation Award
2002	Recipient of Canada Research Chair in Advanced Polymer Materials/Tier 2
2003	Schlumberger Scholarship (Oxford University, UK)
2004	Clara Benson Award (CIC Award)
2005	Macromolecular Science and Engineer Award, CIC
2006	Recipient of Canada Research Chair in Advanced Polymer Materials/ Tier 1
2007	Elected as Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada (Canadian National Academy of Science). The 2007 E. Gordon Young Lecturer of The Chemical Institute of Canada
2008-2009	L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Prize (Laureate for North America)
2009	Japan-Canada WISET lectureship, Royal Society of Canada
2010	Killam Research Fellowship, Canada Council for the Arts
2011	Distinguished Lecturer, The University of Western Ontario, Canada. Connaught Innovation Award, Connaught Foundation.
2012	Humboldt Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). Inventor of the Year, University of Toronto
2013	University Professor (distinction given to <2% of Faculty at the University of Toronto)
2016	Elected as Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (British National Academy of Science)
2017	Canada Institute of Chemistry (CIC) Medal