Charles M. Schroeder

Charles M. Schroeder is a James Economy Professor in Materials Science & Engineering and a Professor in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds affiliations in Chemistry, Bioengineering, and the Beckman Institute. His research focuses on single-molecule studies of polymers, proteins, and soft materials to understand microscopic-to-macroscopic property transitions.

Education:

• B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University (1999)
• M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Stanford University (2001, 2004)
• Postdoctoral Fellowships: Harvard University (2004–2007), UC Berkeley (2007–2008)

Research Interests: Single-molecule techniques for polymer dynamics, biophysics of soft materials, optoelectronic materials design, and colloidal systems. His work bridges biology, engineering, and physics to advance molecular-level understanding and applications in energy storage, biomaterials, and data storage.

Recent Achievements:

• Developed the Stokes Trap for particle manipulation
• Advances in DNA-based data storage systems
• Studies on charge transport in conjugated peptides

Grants & Awards:

• Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2013)
• NSF CAREER Award (2013)
• Packard Fellowship in Science & Engineering (2011)
• Fellow of American Physical Society (2023)

Labs & Collaborations: Beckman Institute’s Molecular Design & Engineering Group, AI for Materials (AIM) Group, and interdisciplinary teams in synthetic biology and computational molecular science.