Current Students Former Students
Kyle N. Plunkett, Ph.D.
Kyle was born in Yakima, WA and grew up in Moxee, WA among the hop fields and apple orchards (in a house with no running water, mind you!). His parents moved to Corsicana, TX when he was nine years old and he took to baseball and Chemistry in high school. He attended Navarro College for a year before going to Texas A&M University - College Station where he wholeheartedly followed Aggie football, studied Chemistry, and graduated with a B.S. degree in 2000. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the lab of Professor Jeffrey S. Moore where he studied hydrogels integration with biomacromolecules. After graduation in 2005, he moved to Mainz, Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research with Professor Klaus Muellen. He returned to the United States in 2006 and worked with Professor Colin Nuckolls at Columbia University in New York City. His work involved organic semiconducting materials in both of these research experiences. He received an offer for a professorship from Southern Illinois University department of chemistry in 2010 and have been here ever since. Kyle enjoys travelling, spending time with family, dabbling in new technologies (3d printing, AR/VR, etc.), doing home repair, and brewing beer as a hobby (guessing it was in his roots from growing up in the hop fields of Moxee).
Training
B.S. Chemistry, Texas A&M University, 2000
Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005
Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, 2006
Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University, 2006-2010
Academic Positions
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Southern Illinois University, 2010-2015
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Southern Illinois University, 2015-2021
Professor of Chemistry, Southern Illinois University, 2021-present
Visiting Professor / Sabbatical, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2022-present
Honors/Awards
Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2006)
NSF CAREER Award (2014-2019)
Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2014)
University-Level Early Career Faculty Excellence Award (2014)
J. Mater. Chem. Emerging Investigator themed issue (2016)
Academic Tree
