Lab Group Photo, Summer 2025

Principal Investigator

Edmund F. Palermo
Associate Professor of Materials Science & Engineering

Ed is from Bay Shore, NY. He began his adventures in polymer science as a high school student under Prof. Miriam Rafailovich at SUNY Stony Brook. After completing a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell in 2006, he moved to The University of Michigan and earned a Ph.D. in Macromolecular Science & Engineering, under the mentorship of Kenichi Kuroda, in 2011. Ed was also an NSF/JSPS visiting scholar at Nagoya University under Prof. Masami Kamigaito in 2010. Following a postdoc with Anne McNeil in Chemistry at Michigan, Ed joined the faculty at RPI in 2014 and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 2020. Ed is married to Gabrielle C. Todd and they have a daughter, Sophia, who was born in 2016. 
Awards and Honors
  • ACS PMSE Young Investigator
  • NSF CAREER Award, DMR-Biomaterials
  • ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award
  • 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award

Senior Researchers

Dr. John Leman
Senior Research Scientist

Dr. Leman earned his BS in Chemistry from The University of Michigan and his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Harvard with Prof. A.R. Barron in 1993. Following a postdoc at UC Irvine in the W. J. Evans group, John was a senior staff chemist at GE Corporate Research & Development for 21 years. His work has encompassed inorganic synthesis; high-purity specialty chemicals (especially silica), fluoroelastomers, compound semiconductor crystal growth, organosilicon chemistry, silicones, 3-D printing, additive manufacturing, investment casting. He has been called a "walking encyclopedia of chemical knowledge". John joined RPI as a Research Scientists in 2021, working on TaOx contrast agents with Dr. Pete Bonitatibus in Chemistry. In 2023, he teamed up with the Palermo and Gilbert labs to develop translational micromolding and manufacturing processes for poly(pro-drug) based thermoplastics and thermosets. He has since worked on dozens of different research efforts across the RPI campus.

Graduate Students

Nikita Waskiewicz
Ph.D. candidate in BME '26

Nikita is from Clifton Park, NY and is a graduate of Niskayuna HS. She attended Mount Holyoke College and earned a BA in biochemistry in 2021. She is in the Biomedical Engineering PhD program and joined the Palermo lab group in fall 2021. Currently, she is working on synthesis and characterization of polymerized estrogen materials.
Payton O'Connor
Ph.D. pre-candidate in BME

Payton is from Boston, MA. She earned her BS in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Visual Arts from Boston University in 2023.  As an undergraduate, she worked on stimuli-responsive polymer coatings under the guidance of Dr. Timothy O’Shea. She started in the Biomedical Engineering PhD program in 2023 and joined the Palermo lab group in 2025. In 2024, she was awarded the NIGMS Biomolecular Science and Engineering Training Fellowship. She is currently working to develop a reactive-oxygen species responsive pro-drug.
Ben Lam
Ph.D. pre-candidate in MSE

Ben is from Brooklyn, NY. He obtained his BS in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in 2025. He is in the Materials Science and Engineering PhD program and joined the Palermo group in August 2025. Currently, he is working on inclusion complexes and polymers of boldine.
Katelin McPeck
Chemistry '26 and co-term MSE MEng '27

Katelin is from Highland, NY. She will graduate with her B.S. in Chemistry in May of 2026 and will graduate with her M.Eng. in Materials Science and Engineering in May of 2027. She was previously a part of the Shelley Lab in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology where she worked on LCMS and spectrophotometry quantitation for various projects. She joined the Palermo Research Group in January of 2026.

Undergraduate Students

Julia Gregory
Undergrad in BME, Chemistry (minor) class of '26
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Julia is from South Paris, Maine, and will graduate with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Chemistry in May 2026. She joined the Palermo group in May 2024 and is researching poly(prodrug) materials.
Julian Arnold
Undergrad in BME Class of '27

Julian, from Atlanta, Georgia, is pursuing a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Chemistry, with an expected graduation date of May 2027. He joined the Palermo Research Group in August 2025, where he assists in the development of stimuli-responsive pro-drugs. Following his undergraduate studies, Julian aims to pursue a career in the research and development of novel drug delivery methods and pharmaceuticals.
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