My primary research focus is to design and develop (1) synthetic materials that can self-heal and self-assemble to provide a significant increase in bonding performance of adhesives/coatings/composites; (2) toughness enhancement of load-bearing materials with reversible/dynamic/sacrificial bonds; and (3) micro-phase transitions of ionic polymers such as polyelectrolyte complexation for practical biomedical/dental/industrial applications inspired by biological adhesion mechanism.