Samantha McBride Receives 2026 ACS Emerging Investigator Award

Samantha McBride, William K. Gemmill Term Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has received the 2026 Emerging Investigator Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry, which recognizes early-career researchers for their exceptional contributions to colloid and surface science.

As part of the award, McBride presented her research at the Emerging Investigators in Colloid and Interface Science Symposium during the ACS Fall 2026 meeting in August. Her talk, “Solutal Effects in Evaporating Drops on Engineered Interfaces,” highlighted her group’s work investigating how dissolved substances influence the behavior of evaporating droplets on engineered surfaces.

McBride’s research works at the intersection of interfacial phenomena and water chemistry. Her group, the McBride Lab, studies how water and dissolved substances, including contaminants such as salts, interact with surfaces and interfaces. The lab uses insights from these interactions to design engineered interfaces that address challenges in energy, sustainability and water quality.