Blair Brettmann received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. She received her Master's in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT in 2009 following internships at GlaxoSmithKline (Upper Merion, PA) and Mawana Sugar Works (Mawana, India).
Blair received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at MIT in 2012 working with the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing under Prof. Bernhardt Trout. Her research focused on solid-state characterization and application of pharmaceutical formulations prepared by electrospinning.
Following her Ph.D., Blair worked as a research engineer for Saint-Gobain Ceramics and Plastics for two years. While at Saint-Gobain she worked on polymer-based wet coatings and dispersions for various applications, including window films, glass fiber mats and architectural fabrics. Later, Blair served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago with Prof. Matthew Tirrell.
Dr. Brettmann’s current research interests focus on developing technologies that enable multicomponent, rapidly customizable product design, with a specific focus on polymer systems. Mass customization of manufactured material goods presents significant technical challenges, but could yield significant rewards, similar to advances in “just in time” logistics and on-demand consumer services. Substantial challenges in engineering and design, extending from the complexity of multicomponent functional materials and the difficulty in applying scientific principles to these complex systems, slow material product development. Her research group designs and studies new processing and characterization technologies using both experiments and theory, focusing on linking molecular to micron scale phenomena in complex systems to product performance.
Professor Brettmann's teaching interests emphasize core chemical engineering principles and materials science fundamentals at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Her courses integrate foundational topics in transport phenomena, thermodynamics, and process design, aiming to develop students' problem-solving and analytical skills. She is committed to involving students actively in learning and fostering interdisciplinary approaches that connect chemical engineering concepts with emerging material technologies.
BS in Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2007
PhD in Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012
Dobbs, A.A., N.P. O’Kelly, L. A. Hilger, V. Breedveld, B Brettmann, “Effect of polymer binder on dispersion stability of dense non-colloidal pastes”, Soft Matter, 2026, DOI: 10.1039/D5SM01059D
Amrihesari, M, M Banerjee, R Olmedo, B Brettmann, “Role of high fidelity vs. low fidelity experimental data in machine learning model performance for predicting polymer solubility”, Macromolecular Rapid Communications, 2025, DOI: 10.1002/marc.202500454
Wei, S., G. Kim, N. P. O'Kelly, Y Walker, B Brettmann, “Effect of additive valency on electrospinnability of polyvinyl alcohol solutions,” Polymer, 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2025.129419
Cho, J, S Ghosh, M Nandi, H Jeon, L Yue, HJ Qi, M.G. Finn, B Brettmann, “Stoichiometric Effects on Bulk Stress Relaxation to Enhance Reprocessability in Covalent Adaptable Networks” Polymer Chemistry, 2025, DOI: 10.1039/D5PY00013K
Amrihesari, M, BK Brettmann, “Introducing data-driven materials informatics into undergraduate courses through a polymer science workshop” Journal of Chemical Education, 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00562