Copp earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2011. She then completed her master’s degree (2013) and doctorate (2016) in physics at UC Santa Barbara. Copp studies how biomolecular and polymeric building blocks can be used to build novel nanomaterials that generate and/or control light, with an aim to revolutionize technologies in medicine and energy. At UCI, her lab focuses on DNA-directed assembly of metallic clusters and nanostructures and block copolymer-directed assembly of photonic nanomaterials, as well as methods to expedite nanomaterials discovery using high-throughput experiments and tools from machine learning. Copp was a Hoffman Distinguished postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she also held a UC President’s postdoctoral fellowship, a L’Oreal USA for Women in Science fellowship, and a LANL Director’s postdoctoral fellowship.

Copp has joint faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Physics and Astronomy. 

B.S., Physics and Mathematics, University of Arizona, 2011
M.S., Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2013
Ph.D., Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2016

Metal nanoclusters, photonics, DNA nanomaterials, polymer self-assembly, biomimetics, machine learning for materials discovery