Evan Williams
Mr. Evan R. Williams
Ph.D. Program
School of Materials Engineering
Purdue University
B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, Purdue University, 2025
Project: Rheo-physical properties of concentrated surfactant solutions
Bio: Evan grew up in Milliken, Colorado but completed the second half of high school in Melbourne, Australia. He graduated with his Bachelor’s from Purdue MSE in 2025. Unlike many MSEs, Evan knew he wanted to study materials in high school after reading about liquid body armor, naturally, drawing him to complex fluids. His IB extended essay was even titled, “Effects of Colloidal Particle Concentration in Shear Thickening Fluids”. Evan loved his time in his undergraduate program and enjoys finding ways to connect hard materials science and metallurgy to polymer science and complex fluid behavior.
Evan began his undergraduate research in the Erk group studying rheological properties of alternative cement binders with different additives for use in 3D printing. He then transitioned to studying the structure property relationship of concentrated surfactant solutions with fatty alcohol additives in collaboration with Procter & Gamble which he continued during his Purdue SURF internship (summer 2024) where he focused on the mixing kinetics of these systems. Finally, funded by an Office of Undergraduate Research Scholarship and in collaboration with Cook Advanced Technologies, he characterized novel low friction polymer brush coatings for use in medical devices. Evan interned with Cook Polymer Technologies in Bloomington, Indiana (summer 2023) where he worked as a validation engineer, gaining experience in the validation process for new products.
Evan joined Prof. Erk’s SMM group as a graduate student in Fall 2025. In collaboration with Procter & Gamble, he is working on modeling wall slip of sheared complex fluids in both lab scale measurements and pilot scale measurements with the goal of connecting behavior measured in a rheometer to the material’s behavior in pipe flow. Evan enjoys comedy, cooking and food science, grunge, tattoos, and flags.