Zachariah Vicars

Alumni

Patel Group roles: Former PhD Student, 2017–2025
REACT Fellow.
Dissertation: “Computational Materials Design for Exercising Control Over Ice Formation”
Research interests: Wetting and dewetting, Nanotextured surfaces, Ice formation

Research interests

During my time in the Patel Group, my research focused on understanding wetting/dewetting transitions on nanotextured surfaces to aid in the rational design of superhydrophobic, antifouling, and water-harvesting devices. I used a combination of molecular dynamics (MD) and a coarse-grained lattice model (CGLM) to characterize the free energetics and dewetting pathways of interfacial water.

Publications

Jiang, Z., Vicars, Z., Fialoke, S., Jamadagni, S. N., Koenig, P. H., & Patel, A. J. (2025). Thermodynamics of Self-Assembly and Supramolecular Transitions Using Enhanced Sampling. Langmuir, 41(23), 14656–14668. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00114

Paper Preprint

Kim, B. Q., Vicars, Z., Füredi, M., Escobedo, L. F., Venkatesh, R. B., Guldin, S., Patel, A. J., & Lee, D. (2025). Amphiphilic nanopores that condense undersaturated water vapor and exude water droplets. Science Advances, 11(21), eadu8349. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adu8349

Paper Media Coverage

Vicars, Z., Choi, J., Marks, S. M., Remsing, R. C., & Patel, A. J. (2024). Interfacial Ice Density Fluctuations Inform Surface Ice-Philicity. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 128(35), 8512–8521. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.4c03783

Paper Preprint

Thosar, A. U., Cai, Y., Marks, S. M., Vicars, Z., Choi, J., Pallath, A., & Patel, A. J. (2024). On the engulfment of antifreeze proteins by ice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(24), e2320205121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2320205121

Paper Preprint

Marks, S. M., Vicars, Z., Thosar, A. U., & Patel, A. J. (2023). Characterizing Surface Ice-Philicity Using Molecular Simulations and Enhanced Sampling. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 127(27), 6125–6135. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c01627

Paper Preprint

Gabinet, U. R., Lee, C., Poling-Skutvik, R., Keane, D., Kim, N. K., Dong, R., Vicars, Z., Cai, Y., Thosar, A. U., Grun, A., Thompson, S. M., Patel, A. J., Kagan, C. R., Composto, R. J., & Osuji, C. O. (2021). Nanocomposites of 2D-MoS2 Exfoliated in Thermotropic Liquid Crystals. ACS Materials Letters, 3(6), 704–712. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmaterialslett.1c00222

Paper

Jiang, H., Fialoke, S., Vicars, Z., & Patel, A. J. (2019). Characterizing surface wetting and interfacial properties using enhanced sampling (SWIPES). Soft Matter, 15(5), 860–869. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8SM02317D

Paper Correction Preprint