Lynn M. Walker

Lynn M. Walker

Carnegie Mellon University

Chemical Engineer
Fellow, Elected 2017

Prof. Lynn M. Walker is a professor of chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She completed her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire in 1990 and went on to receive her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 1995, concentrating on the rheology and rheo-optics of liquid crystal polymers under shear flow. After working for a year as a postdoctoral fellow at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, Prof. Walker joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

Prof. Walker has spent over 25 years working in the area of material structure and rheology. Her early work during her Ph.D. and postdoctoral appointment focused on the rheology, rheo-optics, and small angle scattering of liquid crystalline polymers and polymer blends. Later at CMU, in her own research group, she studied the jet breakup of non-Newtonian liquids and the rheology of wormlike micelles. Her research in the area of polymeric jet breakup led to significant technological contributions to the development of the nascent biomaterials manufacturing field. Her group demonstrated that inkjet printing can be used to control the patterning and growth of cells on surfaces for applications in tissue scaffolding and regeneration. She has also focused a significant portion of her research on the control of ordered block copolymer phases through shear, the characterization of these phases via small angle neutron scattering, and exploring the use of these structures to template the ordering of nanoparticles. Recently, Prof. Walker has also studied the combination of electrokinetics with non-Newtonian fluid properties and the interfacial rheology of complex fluid layers.

During the course of this work, Prof. Walker also helped to develop a novel microtensiometer platform; this device allows the user to follow the dynamics of transport, adsorption, and desorption of surfactant from oil-water interfaces and to examine the sequential and competitive adsorption of different components of a dispersant mixture. In recognition of her work, Prof. Walker was awarded the DuPont Young Professor Grant in 2000 and received the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in 2001.

In addition to her extensive academic contributions to the field of rheology, Prof. Walker also served as Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee of The Society of Rheology from 2003 to 2007, and she was instrumental in working to establish the Arthur B. Metzner Early Career Award for the Society, which promotes young rheologists and is now one of the Society's most important and prestigious awards. Most recently, Prof. Walker was appointed Editor of the journal Rheologica Acta in 2016.

Based on the documents submitted by Lorenz T. Biegler and Shelley L. Anna.