US Naval Research Lab
E-mail: christopher_so @ avs.org

CHRISTOPHER SO is is a Materials Research Scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. He serves as Head of the Biomolecular Interfaces and Tribology Section in the Surface Chemistry Branch of the Chemistry Division at NRL. In 2012, he finished his Ph.D. at the University of Washington, where he held a T32 NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. After receiving his Ph.D. in materials science with Prof. Mehmet Sarikaya, he accepted a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Kathryn Wahl at the Naval Research Laboratory to study the natural adhesive produced by barnacles. More recently, underwater adhesives produced from abundant protein sources out of Dr. So’s lab have been funded for applied development by ONR. His research interests are focused on biophysical techniques, bioinspired materials in extreme environments, underwater adhesion, and peptide/protein design.

Dr. So has received a number of prestigious awards and honors, such as an AVS Early Career Award, ONR early career research grants, NRL publication awards and journal covers, as well as his work being selected as the late breaking talk at the Science of Adhesion GRC in 2019.