Stephen L. Craig is the William T. Miller Professor of Chemistry at Duke University. He is the director of the Center for Molecularly Optimized Networks, a NSF Phase I Center for Chemical Innovation.
Career
Craig received his B.S. in chemistry from Duke University in 1991. The following year, he completed the M.Phil. in theoretical chemistry at University of Cambridge as a Churchill Scholar. He then began his studies in physical organic chemistry at Stanford University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1997 working with John Brauman. Upon completion of his Ph.D., he spent two years as a research chemist at DuPont, and one year as a postdoctoral researcher with Julius Rebek at The Scripps Research Institute. He was appointed assistant professor of chemistry at Duke University in 2000, where he was later promoted to associate professor in 2007, and professor in 2012. The following year he was named the William T. Miller Professor of Chemistry, the position he currently holds. He was the chair of the chemistry department from 2012 to 2017. At Duke, his studies have focused on the mechanisms and reaction dynamics of chemical reactions coupled to mechanical forces, including single-molecule studies of associative exchange reactions as well as mechanochemical pathways that violate orbital symmetry principles in the absence of force. Chemical concepts that have emerged from these studies include “tension trapping” transition states and reactive intermediates, covalent “stress relief”, and “backbone lever arm effects”. Materials concepts demonstrated by his group include stress-responsive polymers that strengthen in response to destructive mechanical forces and chemomechanically active soft devices like soft robots and electroactive displays. Work in his group in the area of supramolecular polymers led to the development of a “macromolecular analogue of the kinetic isotope effect” that has been used to probe complex non-linear material properties and material toughening through otherwise “mechanically invisible” interactions.
Current research
Ongoing research in the Craig lab bridges physical organic and materials chemistry. Current topics of research include the design and synthesis of self-healing polymers and the use of contemporary mechanochemistry in new stress-responsive polymers, catalysis, and the study of reactive intermediates and transition states. These areas require an interdisciplinary and nontraditional mix of synthetic organic and polymer chemistry, single-molecule spectroscopy, supramolecular chemistry, and materials characterization.
Major publications
AL Black, JM Lenhardt, and SL Craig, "From molecular mechanochemistry to stress-responsive materials", J. Mater. Chem., 21, 1655–1663
JM Lenhardt, MT Ong, R Choe, CR Evenhuis, TJ Martinez, and SL Craig, "Trapping a diradical transition state by mechanochemical polymer extension", Science, 329, 1057–1060
H Juwarker, JM Lenhardt, DM Pham, and SL Craig, "1,2,3‐Triazole CH⋅⋅⋅Cl− Contacts Guide Anion Binding and Concomitant Folding in 1,4‐Diaryl Triazole Oligomers", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 47, 3740–3743
WC Yount, DM Loveless, and SL Craig, "Strong means slow: Dynamic contributions to the bulk mechanical properties of supramolecular networks", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 44, 2746–2748
WC Yount, DM Loveless, and SL Craig, "Small-molecule dynamics and mechanisms underlying the macroscopic mechanical properties of coordinatively cross-linked polymer networks", J. Am. Chem. Soc., 127, 14488–14496
F Hof, SL Craig, C Nuckolls, and J Rebek, "Molecular encapsulation", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 41, 1488–1508
ML Chabinyc, SL Craig, CK Regan, and JI Brauman, "Gas-phase ionic reactions: dynamics and mechanism of nucleophilic displacements", Science, 279, 1882–1886
