She is the Swanlund Endowed Chair and the head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
[2] She is also a co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures Research Theme at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
[5] She is a pioneer in the area of adaptive materials, creating the first self-healing polymers with Jeffrey S. Moore, Scott R. White, and others as of 2000.
[10] She was appointed co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures Research Theme at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in 2004, succeeding Jeffrey Moore.
[14][15] She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 for contributions to the design and applications of self-healing and multifunctional materials.
[16] Sottos helped develop the first polymeric self-healing material with colleagues including Jeffrey Moore and Scott White.
Using dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) and Grubbs' catalyst in an epoxy matrix, polycyclopendiene was formed to seal cracks, recovering up to 75% of the original fracture toughness.
[18][19] Sottos has also focused on the design of microvascular networks for the distribution of active fluids in autonomous materials systems.
Such designs offer possibilities for "self-healing, regeneration, self-sensing, self-protection and self-cooling" properties, similar to those of biological systems.
This approach has potential applications in the design and use of fiberglass and other composite materials for structures including airplanes and wind turbines.
[23] A team led by Sottos and Wenle Li[24] has developed polymeric structural materials that can indicate the presence of damage by changing color.
This autonomous visual indicator can enable engineers to detect mechanical damage and intervene before a structure is compromised.
The orientation of the MC subspecies relative to the tensile force could be characterized based on the anisotropy of the fluorescence polarization.
[30][31] The researchers have also demonstrated that mechanical force can power a chemical response in the polymer, changing the covalent bonding.