Joseph Dosch

If you didn't know it... undergraduate research is HUGE at Carnegie Mellon. It's where I got my start. Right here in what is now my very own labs-- but at that time they belonged to Dr. Rick McCullough. 

Today's researcher is part of our vibrant undergraduate research culture. Please say hi to Joe!

Name: Joseph Dosch

Hometown: Pittsburgh

Education/ Experience/ Awards: Carnegie Mellon Chemistry major, Biomedical Engineering minor, CMU Chemistry SURF 2023, Pitt Pharmacology SURF 2024

Team Sydlik Member since: January 2023

Research Project: Adsorbent properties of Activated Charcoal, Aromatic Peptide Amphiphiles

Favorite thing about CMU/ the Sydlik Group: The group members generally like each other and can joke around which makes for a positive research environment.

Least favorite thing about CMU/ the Sydlik Group: When I put a lot of effort into an experiment and the data is terrible or I spill everything.

Favorite thing to do in Pittsburgh: Live in it (best city)

Fun fact: Cannot solve a rubik's cube

I am Joe Dosch, a senior Chemistry major at Carnegie Mellon. I have been a part of the Sydlik lab working with Hunter Wood and Stella Trickett since the spring of 2023. My research involves analyzing the adsorbent properties of activated charcoal, synthesizing/characterizing peptide amphiphiles as a biocompatible adsorbent, and obeying Hunter’s demands. If I am not in the lab doing yet another NCA synthesis, I am probably doing homework, at a Steelers game, or playing ultimate frisbee for Carnegie Mellon’s club team.

Max (Chenyun) Deng

All these years later, I'm going to see if I can get the group members to finally introduce themselves on the website... first up is Max! Max joined the group in the fall of 2022 as a Biomedical Engineering MS student. After earning his MS in December he transitioned to a Research Assistant in the group and will be starting as a Chemistry PhD student in the fall. Even though he's been around for a while, we are excited to welcome Max!

Name: Max (Chenyun) Deng

Hometown: Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China

Education/ Experience/ Awards: 

      2016-20, BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center

      2020-22, MS in Medicinal Chemistry, Peking University Health Science Center

      2022-23, MS in Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

      2024, Research Assistant, Team Sydlik, Carnegie Mellon University

      2024.8-, PhD student, Team Sydlik, Carnegie Mellon University

Team Sydlik Member since? Oct 2022

Research Project: I guess continuing research on CaPG-related stuff?

Favorite thing about CMU/ the Sydlik Group: I can have memes and roast someone (looking at Jason) in my research/weekly 1v1 updates!

Least favorite thing about CMU/ the Sydlik Group: Hot pressing 100+ pellets for cell experiments

Favorite thing to do in Pittsburgh: Watching Steelers games

Fun fact: I had to cut my hair short but will do dye my hair blue again like the last time!

Team Sydlik Takes MARM!

When I was a student, I always wondered why professors' websites were out of date. When I became a new professor, I chose to use a Blog for my website so it was easy to update... and yet here we are! Only one update in the last 5 years 😳😂😅 At least you can see from Google Scholar that we've been doing some fun science and from @bunniesofochem (Instagram) that bunnies have a good time with Team Sydlik! (Forget about X... once it stopped being Twitter, it stopped being fun.) Anyways, the truth of this matter is that professors have too much to do and too little time and if we don't update our websites, everyone in our group still gets paid and our courses still get taught. None of our promotion or retention is based on how good our website is... so it slips to the bottom of the priority list. That's not to say that recruiting is not important! I'm chair of our admissions committee so prospective graduate students are a top priority to me. If you have any questions, just reach out and ask! (And if you don't get a response the first time... try again! I get at least 100 emails I have to respond to for essentials every day, so often some slip through the cracks.)

Anyways. I promised my students that if they got ice cream together and sent me a picture, I would in turn update the website. So here goes...

Last week (June 5-8) Team Sydlik visited Penn State University for the ACS Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting. 5 team members presented including Dr. Juhi Singh (PD), Walker Vickery (PhD 5), Sebastian Guarjardo (PhD 2), Jacob Kadir (UG), and Dr. Annie Arnold (Lab Manager/ Group Leader/ Cat Herder). Enriching science was shared and learned. The real highlight of the trip though, was the trip for group ice cream at the Penn State Creamery!

L to R: Sebastian, Walker, Juhi, Annie, Jacob.
I don't see proof of ice cream, but I trust that it was so good that it disappeared immediately ;)

Archived Welcome Page

 The old welcome page... retired June of 2024 (Yikes! 8 years already after it was created!)

The Sydlik Group is a polymer and material research group in the Chemistry Department at Carnegie Mellon University. We specialize in the design and synthesis of novel polymers and organic materials for use in electronic, mechanical, and biological applications.

The Sydlik Group works in the Mellon Institute (Group picture, April 2016)

And we have all. the. fun. in the lab! (First tissue sample, July 2016)

This one time, we got in a car together and drove all the way to Canada for a conference... #SydlikGroupSelfie (May 2016)

And sometimes I mandate fun: Spring Carnival 2016

Official group colors are lime green and ocean blue. (Prof Sydlik likes bicycles too.)

And there's a bunny. Follow him on Instagram! @ProfBiscuitSydlik

It's been a long pandemic...

 Life has been crazy busy dealing with the constant adaptations that the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown at a young pre-tenure lab! Despite this, Team Sydlik is thriving and lab life is slowly returning to normal. I will be working to update the website (with with back-dated entries!) over the next couple weeks. In the meantime, please enjoy these pictures from Sydlik Groupsgiving and the Team Sydlik Graham Cracker Gingerbread village, two of our favorite holiday traditions!

Sydlik Groupsgiving at Prof Sydlik's new house! Everyone tested negative, so we were free to unmask and share a meal :)

Team Sydlik graham cracker gingerbread houses. Why does every masked picture look so serious?

Welcoming new graduate students!

It's been a while since I updated, but Team Sydlik's been very busy! So far we've had a paper come out every month this year, starting with our exciting paper in PNAS in January. I swear I'll write more about our amazing research soon... but for now I'm here to announce that we're looking to hire new graduate students! Any CMU graduate students in chemistry, BME, or a related engineering should contact Stefanie (ssydlik-at-andrew.cmu.edu) or just come to one of our Monday morning group meetings to learn more. We have room for up to 3 new members!

Welcome Stephen!

Team Sydlik is excited to celebrate a new addition this week! Stephen Schmidt is a first year chemistry PhD student from Montana. (Like Prof Sydlik's PhD advisor, Tim Swager!) We are very excited to have him. Stephen will be working on new functionalization methods for degradable, cell instructive functional graphene materials.

We made a deal... they let me take their picture if I agreed to finally update the website 😂🙌

Prof Sydlik's Favorite Chocolate Cake (Another promise in return for the picture)

1.75c flour
0.5c cocoa powder
1c brown sugar
2t baking powder
1/4t baking soda
1/2T almond extract
1/2c pumpkin puree
1c almond milk (may need to add more or less depending on your flour. Cake batter should be thicker than normal cake though-- Kinda like a hybrid between cake & brownie batter)

Makes a 9" cake. Bake 30 minutes at 350F (or until a fork comes out clean).


Toping with a simple buttercream icing from powdered sugar, almond milk, vanilla, and earth balance butter is 👌