Eric Tillman

"The reason I wanted to come to Bucknell is because it has a reputation of doing high quality research with undergraduates."

Assistant professor of chemistry

What do a polyester leisure suit, Kevlar sports equipment, and cellophane food wrap have in common?

They are all products of polymer research. Polymers are large molecules that are made up of smaller repeated units. Making them is like building a long chain by adding one link at time.

Eric Tillman, assistant professor of chemistry and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar for 2009-14, specializes in synthesizing polymers. He devises reactions that allow the polymer chain to be “grown,” or initiated, from a carefully chosen molecule. Unlike materials scientists or chemical engineers, however, Tillman’s interest is focused on understanding and controlling the basic reactions in building polymers.

Having an inquisitive nature is an essential tool for a polymer scientist. Tillman and his students ask a lot of questions. Did the polymerization work? Was it controlled? Does the polymer contain the molecule that they wanted? Did some other mechanism initiate it?

When asking questions, polymer scientists must also be prepared for the unexpected. One of Tillman’s students, Amanda Roof ’06, was working to put a molecule into a polymer chain using a new method they devised. Their plan involved first manipulating this molecule, then using it as an anchor to grow two polymer chains.

Roof succeeded in creating a polymer; however, upon further analysis she realized that the reactions that were occurring in the laboratory were not what she and Tillman had mapped out on paper. It was time to go back to the drawing board. Tillman and Roof wanted to discover exactly what reactions were occurring.

Roof’s continued research into the unexpected reaction resulted in a paper published in Polymer, co-authored by Tillman, Roof, and four other Bucknell undergraduates.

Tillman enjoys working with students. “The reason I wanted to come to Bucknell,” he says, “is because it has a reputation of doing high quality research with undergraduates.” He generally has five to seven students working in his lab at a time.

He chose to work in this particular field of polymer research because it was so accessible to undergraduates. According to Tillman, the students can build directly on what they learn in first-year organic chemistry and apply it to polymer synthesis. When students first join Tillman’s group, often as sophomores, they are usually apprehensive about the research process, he says.

He enjoys watching their growth as scientists. Many times by their senior year they are conducting literature searches on their own and suggesting to Tillman ideas for the direction of their research.

According to Tillman, “Chemistry research gives them a better idea of what they can do when they leave Bucknell.”

Tillman was the 2007-08 recipient of the William Pierce Boger Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Natural Sciences.

Updated Jan. 7, 2010