Our group is interested in probing the fundamental relationship between molecular structure and the thermal and physical properties of molecular gels. We functionalize selectively natural products and other designed molecules to investigate how small structural changes affect the organization and morphology of the self-assembled networks that are responsible for the macroscopic immobilization of liquids in the gels.  The molecular gels are studied by a wide variety of spectroscopic, structural and mechanical techniques (including polarized optical microscopy, rheology, dynamic light scattering, atomic force microscopy, resonance Raman spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, differential scanning calorimetry, and small angle neutron scattering). Our group is a part of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology (I(SM)2) at Georgetown and we routinely collaborate on projects with other members.