Prof. Zakaria Al Balushi of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has been awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER award for his project entitled “Phase Control in Synthetic Two-dimensional Materials.” The five-year grant (totaling $600,000) is from the Division of Civil, Mechanical & Manufacturing Innovation and will support Prof. Al Balushi’s efforts to advance the manufacturing of…

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Prof. Junqiao Wu’s research group has developed an all-season smart-roof coating that keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer without consuming natural gas or electricity. Research findings reported in the journal Science point to a groundbreaking technology that outperforms commercial cool-roof systems in energy savings. The technology uses a photonically amplified metal-insulator phase transition to switch…

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MSE’s own Professor Kristin Persson and Professor Gerd Ceder were featured on an episode of Marketplace radio’s climate technology podcast “How We Survive.” During the episode, they discuss the future of batteries, new materials, and self-driving labs (among other things). Head here to find the episode and listen for yourself to two world leaders in this…

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It is with great sadness that we pass on the news that Didier de Fontaine, a pioneer in the field of first principles Materials Science and Emeritus Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, passed away on November 20, 2021. Professor de Fontaine received his PhD from Northwestern in 1967 and joined the University of California…

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The American Physical Society (APS) is a professional society that represents over 55,000 members including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and throughout the world. The APS Fellowship Program recognizes members who may have made advances in physics through original research and publication, or made significant innovative contributions in the application…

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Prof. Ting Xu was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Engineering’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program as part of the End-of-Life Plastics (E3P) call for proposals (see details here). The proposal, entitled “Plastic Lifecycle by Rationally Designed Enzyme-containing Plastics” is part of a growing effort to consider the…

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Prof. Zak Al Balushi was awarded a grant from the Society of Hellman Fellows Fund. His Hellman project aims to develop a new kind of superconducting material known as “topological superconductors” that will address challenges with processing of quantum information. This fund, created by a generous gift from the late Mr. F. Warren Hellman, a…

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