Marybeth Appleyard
Marybeth Appleyard
Energy Science and Engineering (ESE)
During her time at Virginia Tech, she participated in two years of undergraduate biological colloid research and received several presentation awards for both poster and oral presentations at graduate school symposia. During the summer of 2024, she interned with the University of Tennessee SMaRT program, where she conducted soft matter research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Education
Appleyard attended Virginia Tech for her undergraduate degree, majoring in chemical engineering and minoring in biomedical engineering.
Research
Appleyard’s research focuses on the design and synthesis of bio-derived polymer networks guided by principles of sustainability and circularity. Her current project investigates dynamic covalent chemistries to create reprocessable polymer systems, with an emphasis on scalable synthesis, curing behavior, and structure–property relationships. She uses wet-lab polymer chemistry and materials characterization to develop closed-loop recyclable materials for applications such as coatings and additively manufactured components.