Biography

Sophia completed her undergraduate studies in chemistry at New Mexico State University, located in her hometown of Las Cruces, NM. There, she conducted research in synthetic organic methodology under the advisement of Prof. William A. Maio and fell in love with constructing new molecules. She obtained her B.S. in chemistry in 2018 before joining the group of Prof. Javier Read de Alaniz at the University of California, Santa Barbara to pursue her Ph.D. studies. Her dissertation work involved the development of synthetic methodologies for constructing complex polymer architectures, accessing stimuli-responsivity within soft materials, and improving bulk material properties via molecular-level design. During her Ph.D., Sophia became fascinated with polymers that could be used for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and drug delivery. After graduating with her Ph.D. at the end of 2022, this fascination led her to join the translational biomaterials laboratory of Prof. Eric A. Appel at Stanford University for her postdoctoral research. As a postdoctoral fellow, Sophia designed and evaluated novel polymeric materials for applications in disease treatment, drug delivery, and immunoengineering. Sophia began her independent research group at Oregon State University in the Fall of 2025.

Research

The Bailey Lab aims to address challenges in biomedical materials from a molecular design perspective. We work at the interface of organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, and biomedicine to explore how stimuli-responsive bonds can be incorporated into therapeutically relevant materials. Our lab will design and synthesize new stimuli-responsive small molecules and polymeric materials, then evaluate their potential to overcome obstacles in the fields of drug delivery, tissue engineering, and biomimicry.

Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University (Jan 2023 – Aug 2025)

Doctor of Philosophy, Chemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara (Jul 2018 – Dec 2022)

Bachelor of Science, Chemistry, New Mexico State University (Aug 2014 – May 2018)

Publications

Kaneko, T.; Garcia, R. V.; Chau, A. L.; Pitenis, A. A.; Huang, S.; Moran, B. D.; Bailey, S. J.*; Hawker, C. J.*; Read de Alaniz, J.* Radical-Free Digital Light Processing 3D Printing of Hydrogels Using a Photo-Caged Cyclopentadiene Diels–Alder Strategy. Advanced Functional Materials, 2025, e14415. DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202514415

Bailey, S. J.; Eckman, N.; Brunel, E. S.; Jons, C. K.; Sen, S.; Appel, E. A.* A Thiol–ene Click-based Strategy to Customize Injectable Polymer–Nanoparticle Hydrogel Properties for Therapeutic Delivery. Biomaterials Science, 2025, 13, 1323–1334. DOI: 10.1039/D4BM01315H

Bailey, S. J.; Appel, E. A.* Composite gels designed to stick to biological tissue. Nature, 2024, 625, 455–457. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-023-03996-2

Bailey, S. J.†; Hopkins, E.†; Baxter, N.; Whitehead, I.; Read de Alaniz, J.*; Wilson, M. Z.* Diels–Alder Photoclick Patterning of Extracellular Matrix for Spatially Controlled Cell Behaviors. Advanced Materials, 2023, 35, 2303453. † indicates shared first authorship. DOI: 10.1002/adma.202303453

Bailey, S. J.; Hopkins, E.; Rael, K. D.; Hashmi, A.; Urueña, J. M.; Wilson, M. Z.; Read de Alaniz, J.* Design, Synthesis, and Application of a Water-Soluble Photocage for Aqueous Cyclopentadiene-based Diels–Alder Photoclick Chemistry in Hydrogels. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2023, 135, e202301157. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202301157

Bailey, S. J.; Barney, C. W.; Sinha, N.; Pangali, S. V.; Hawker, C. J.; Helgeson, M.; Valentine, M. T.; Read de Alaniz, J.* Rational Mechanochemical Design of Diels–Alder Crosslinked Biocompatible Hydrogels with Enhanced Properties. Material Horizons, 2022, 9, 1947–1953. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00338D

Seshadri, S.; Bailey, S. J.; Zhao, L.; Fisher, J.; Sroda, M.; Chiu, M.; Stricker, F.; Valentine, M. T.*; Read de Alaniz, J.*; Helgeson, M. E.* Influence of Polarity Change and Photophysical Effects on Photosurfactant-Driven Wetting. Langmuir, 2021, 37, 9939–9951. DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c00769

Bailey, S. J.; Stricker, F.; Hopkins, E.; Wilson, M. Z.; Read de Alaniz, J.* Shining Light on Cyclopentadienone–Norbornadiene Diels–Alder Adducts to Enable Photoinduced Click Chemistry with Cyclopentadiene. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2021, 13, 35422–35430. DOI:10.1021/acsami.1c08670

Bailey, S. J.; Discekici, E. H.; Barbon, S. M.; Nguyen, S. N.; Hawker, C. J.; Read de Alaniz, J.* Norbornadiene Chain-End Functional Polymers as Stable, Readily Available Precursors to Cyclopentadiene Derivatives. Macromolecules, 2020, 53, 4917–4924. DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.0c00967

St. Amant, A. H.†; Discekici, E. H.†; Bailey, S. J.; Zayas, M. S.; Song, J.; Shankel, S. L.; Nguyen, S. N.; Bates, M. W.; Anastasaki, A.; Hawker, C. J.; Read de Alaniz, J.* Norbornadienes: Robust and Scalable Building Blocks for Cascade “Click” Coupling of High Molecular Weight Polymers. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2019, 141, 13619–13624. † indicates shared first authorship. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b06328

Bailey, S. J.; Sapkota, R. R.; Golliher, A. E.; Dungan, B.; Talipov, M.; Holguin, F. O.; Maio, W. A.* Lewis–Acid-Mediated Union of Epoxy-Carvone Diastereomers with Anisole Derivatives: Mechanistic Insight and Application to the Synthesis of Non-natural CBD Analogues. Organic Letters, 2018, 20, 4618–4621. DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.8b01909

Awards

Future Faculty Scholar, ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (2025)

PRISM Baker Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University (2023–2024)

NSF BioPACIFIC MIP Fellow (2020–2022)

Chancellor’s Fellow, University of California, Santa Barbara (2018–2022)

High Achiever Leadership Scholar, New Mexico State University (2014–2018)

Crimson Scholar, New Mexico State University (2014–2018)