February 2, 2025: PhD student Ebuka Ezugwu has been awarded the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship (IDF) for the 2025-26 academic year. This prestigious fellowship recognizes an exceptional mid-career PhD student who engages in multi-disciplinary research. Ebuka’s work exemplifies this spirit by combining mechanical engineering, materials science, and polymer chemistry.
Under the guidance of Professor Susan Mantell, Ebuka is studying the long-term durability of plastic pipes used to replace lead pipes in municipal water systems. His research focuses on how polymer microstructures impact mechanical performance, ensuring that these pipes remain strong and flexible for over a century.
The fellowship allows Ebuka to collaborate with Professor Frank Bates (MRSEC) and leverage advanced characterization techniques available with the MRSEC. Ebuka is investigating how microscopic structural changes affect the pipe’s resistance to fracture over time. His findings could lead to more reliable, cost-effective materials for infrastructure projects nationwide.
January 25, 2025: Postdoc Nileena Nandakumaran (IRG-1) and PhD student Luca Buiarelli (IRG-1) awarded 2025 Minnesota Crucible Prizes! Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 Minnesota Crucible Prize, sponsored by Navjot Singh (PhD ChE ’94) and Nithya Iyer Singh (MS Pharmaceutics ’94). The Minnesota Crucible Prize competition invited participants to present a 10-minute pitch followed by five minutes of Q&A to a panel of two commercialization experts. The top three teams were awarded prizes of $2,000, $500, and $250.
Congratulations to all the finalists! See the details of the 3 winning teams and honorable mentions.
January 14, 2025: The Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering (IPRIME) hosted a mid-year workshop titled Materials Design Challenges for Biomedical Applications. The event explored how fundamental materials research can contribute to enhancing efficacy and functionality of biomedical devices, delivery systems, and therapeutics. Nearly 100 participants from industry and academia gathered for discussions on this critical topic, reflecting the region’s strengths in the med-tech, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing industries.
IPRIME is the University’s industrial-academic partnership, fostering scientific exchange between industry professionals and U of M students and researchers across a wide range of science and engineering disciplines. MRSEC and IPRIME are closely connected, with the program’s director, Chris Ellison, also serving as a faculty member in IRG-2.
If you're interested in participating in IPRIME’s flagship event, save the date for the 2025 IPRIME Annual Meeting, taking place May 27–29. More details to come!
Learn more at the IPRIME website.
January 14, 2025: MRSEC is proud to recognize the outstanding achievements of graduate students Sreejith Nair (IRG-1) and Zhifei Yang (IRG-1), as well as CEMS postdoctoral researcher Dr. Seung Gyo Jeong, for earning prestigious awards from the American Physical Society (APS). All three are valued members of Professor Bharat Jalan’s research group.
Sreejith and Zhifei received the APS Division of Materials Physics (DMP) Ovshinsky Student Travel Award, which provides travel grants to support student researchers’ participation in the APS Global Physics Summit. Dr. Jeong was honored with the APS DMP Postdoctoral Travel Award, which recognizes innovative materials physics research presented at the APS Global Physics Summit. This award highlights research quality, impact, and innovation while supporting the participation of postdoctoral researchers in DMP Focus Topic sessions.
These prestigious accolades will be presented during the 2025 APS March Meeting.
Their work was supported by funding from MRSEC, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the University of Minnesota’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and College of Science and Engineering.
Congratulations to Sreejith, Zhifei, and Seung Gyo for these well-deserved honors!
December 18, 2024: Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese (IRG-2) is one of five women awarded the 2025 Marion Milligan Mason Award by the American Association For The Advancement Of Science (AAAS).
Calabrese was awarded for her groundbreaking research into how magnetic fields influence the solvation environment in weakly diamagnetic complex fluids, driving anomalous phase transitions. Her work aims to expand the capabilities of stimulus-responsive polymers, and to develop advanced materials with finely tunable properties. This recognition reflects her dedication to advancing the field and her commitment to innovation in chemical engineering and materials science.
This marks the third MRSEC faculty member to receive this award, following Professor Vivian Ferry (IRG-1) in 2019, and Assistant Professor Jessica Lamb (Seed) in 2025.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Calabrese on this outstanding honor! To learn more about the Marion Milligan Mason Award, visit the AAAS’s website.
November 20, 2024: Postdoctoral researcher Emily McGuinness (IRG-2) has been named one of only five recipients nationwide of the 2024 L'Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship. This prestigious award recognizes U.S.-based female researchers for their outstanding contributions to STEM fields. Each recipient receives $60,000 to support their postdoctoral research.
Emily's scientific MRSEC research focuses on developing new cooling materials by creating special fibers from everyday materials like plastics and ceramics. These specialized fibers reject sunlight and radiate heat into space through a process called passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC). Microscopic fiber design enhances both sunlight rejection and heat radiation for efficient cooling. This technology could help energy-efficient building cooling, reducing energy consumption and environmental impact.
Emily is also involved in MRSEC outreach activities. The video link below shows Emily working with students at White Bear Lake Area High School (WBLAHS) and demonstrating “Happy Sad Balls”, which was developed and translated into a classroom formative assessment by WBLAHS science teachers Cassie Lydon and Sarah Atkins. The teachers are involved in the UMN MRSEC's Research Education for Teachers (RET) Program.
Learn more about Emily McGuinness’ groundbreaking work on the College of Science and Engineering’s website. For details on the L'Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship and to watch the video highlighting McGuinness’ research and demonstrating "Happy Sad Balls", visit L’Oréal’s website, or read their official award announcement.
Congratulations Emily McGuinness!
October 10, 2024: In recognition of her significant academic accomplishment, advocacy work, and leadership contributions at the University of Minnesota, Northrop Professor Renee Frontiera has been awarded the 2024 Sara Evans Leader Award. The award, sponsored by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, recognizes faculty and academic professionals who are leaders in the advancement of women or gender-marginalized people at the University of Minnesota through leadership, academic excellence, advocacy, engagement or program development. Congratulations Renee!
September 23, 2024: MRSEC graduate student Ben Magruder (Dorfman/Ellison, IRG-2) has been awarded the Richard D. Amelar and Arthur S. Lodge Fellowship for Outstanding Collaborative Research in Materials for 2024-25. This award is given to a student whose research interests encompass the overlapping scope of chemistry and chemical engineering and materials science.
August 28, 2024: This award is given "To recognize outstanding research by an early-career investigator in the field of catalysis carried out by an individual who is under 40 years of age at the time of the award presentation. Congratulations Kelsey!
July 23, 2024: Assistant Professor Ognjen Ilic (Seed) ME Assistant Professor Oggy Ilic's research group sent the new Minnesota state flag on its first flight to space.
July 18, 2024: MRSEC student Caini Zheng (Lodge/Siepmann, IRG-2) is among the 2023-2024 Doctoral Dissertation Fellows. The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) gives the University's most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year. Congratulations Caini!
June 21, 2024: Assistant Professor Chris Bartel (IRG-1/Seed) has been named a Scialog Fellow in Sustainable Minerals, Materials, and Metals. He is among more than 50 early career researchers have been selected as Fellows for the first meeting of a three-year Scialog initiative to spark advances in the mining, design, manufacture, and disposal of materials needed to achieve a more sustainable and low-carbon energy system.
Scialog: Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials, set to begin in September 2024 and continuing through 2026, is co-sponsored by Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, with additional support from The Kavli Foundation. Scialog, created by RCSA in 2010, is short for “science + dialog.” Congratulations Chris!
For more information on the Scialog Fellow in Sustainable Minerals, Materials, and Metals, read the official announcement.
June 7, 2024: The 23rd Annual Chemistry Graduate Student Research Symposium (GSRS) was hosted on June 7th, 2024. Each year, the GSRS gives University of Minnesota Chemistry graduate students the opportunity to present a research highlight to their peers, mentors, and a panel of judges.
This year 30 students presented their research in this day-long event and were judged on effective communication of the research, strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and how well they highlighted important safety aspects of their work. Twelve students were awarded for their distinctive presentations
June 1, 2024: The Goldman Fellowship was created by former students of Professor Allen Goldman to honor his 40+ years of teaching and mentoring students. The fellowship will be awarded each year to a graduate student enrolled in the School of Physics and Astronomy working toward a graduate degree.
March 27, 2024: Professor Andre Mkhoyan was chosen for his contributions to the understanding of electron beam channeling, quantification of imaging and spectroscopy in STEM, & for his discovery of fundamentally new behavior in crystal point and line defects using STEM.
March 14, 2024: Professor Kevin Dorfman and Ben Magruder have written a primer on the theory of block polymer self-assembly for ACS In Focus. The EBook is a primer intended as an introduction to Self Consistent Field Theory (SCFT), and includes some introductory material on polymer thermodynamics and self-assembly as well as some great video interviews! Read the EBook entitled, "Theory of Block Polymer Self-Assembly" on the ACS IN FOCUS website.
February 15, 2024: Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese is among twelve recipients of the 2024-2026 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship. This University-wide program seeks to advance the careers of the most promising junior faculty members who have potential to make significant contributions to their departments and scholarly fields. Recipients were chosen based on merit, professional promise, quality of publication record, and originality and innovation in research achievements. Congratulations Michelle!
February 7, 2024: Regents Professor Tim Lodge and former MRSEC Director, is among two University of Minnesota Professors elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2024. This is among the highest professional distinctions awarded to an engineer. The NAE elected only 114 new members and 21 foreign members this year. Six University of Minnesota alumni were also elected to NAE this year. Congratulations Tim!
December 11, 2023: Phil is among six Outstanding Service Award winners in the College of Science and Engineering (CSE). In his role, Phil has been responsible for overseeing a set of programs aimed at increasing the overall STEM workforce. These include Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) programs and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs. Phil was key in acquiring resources to aid in running these programs. Many of these programs led to the application of students to U of M graduate programs. He has also participated in many other activities that amplify the impact of the MRSEC on educational activities in the K-16 space across the U.S. Phil has done all of this with an exceptional level of professionalism.
November 3, 2023: In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Dorfman Group from CEMS introduced an innovative computational method for uncovering new block polymer phases. By integrating generative adversarial networks (GANs) with polymer self-consistent field theory (SCFT), the team successfully discovered hundreds of new block polymer candidate phases.
This research was conducted by graduate student Pengyu Chen, under the guidance of Prof. Kevin Dorfman. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided financial support through the UMN Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), with computational resources provided by the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.
Read the full paper entitled, "Gaming self-consistent field theory: Generative block polymer phase discovery" on the PNAS website.
October 17, 2023: In a surprising new study, researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have found that the electron beam radiation that they previously thought degraded crystals can actually repair cracks in these nanostructures.
This work was supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Parts of this work were carried out at the UMN Characterization Facility. Computational resources were provided by the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) and film growth was supported by the Department of Energy (DOE).
Read the full paper entitled, "Mending cracks atom-by-atom in rutile TiO2 with electron beam radiolysis" on the Nature Communications website.
October 6, 2023: Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese is among 35 recipients of the 2023 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 35 Under 35 Award.
The award recognizes chemical engineering professionals who have made great contributions to the field and to AIChE. The recipients were selected for their achievements and contributions in one of seven different categories: bioengineering, chemicals and materials, education and outreach, energy and environment, innovation and entrepreneurship, leadership, and safety. Calabrese was honored for her contributions in the chemicals and materials category. Her research group employs rheology, soft matter physics, and polymer and nanoparticle synthesis to address a range of fundamental and applied problems in polymer and soft materials engineering. She hopes her research group will be recognized both for their scientific contributions and their efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
September 22, 2023: Sreejith Nair, a fourth-year chemical engineering graduate student in Professor Bharat Jalan's research group, recently won an Outstanding Student Talk Award at the 37th North American Conference on Molecular Beam Epitaxy (NAMBE) 2023. The conference is a prominent international forum for reporting scientific and technological developments in Molecular Beam Epitaxy research.
September 12, 2023: Regents Professor Frank Bates is among the recipients of the 2024 national awards administered by the American Chemical Society (ACS). Bates won the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science, sponsored by Eastman Chemical. The national awards encourage the advancement of chemistry in all its branches, support research endeavors, and promote the careers of chemists. Recipients will be honored at an award ceremony on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, in conjunction with ACS Spring 2024 in New Orleans.
August 8, 2023: Silu Guo, a fourth-year materials science and engineering Ph.D. candidate in Professor Andre Mkhoyan's (IRG-1) research group, recently won a First Place Physical Sciences Poster Award at the 2023 Microscopy & Microanalysis meeting, which consisted of a monetary award and certificate.
July 13, 2023: A University of Minnesota Twin Cities team has, for the first time, synthesized a thin film of a unique topological semimetal material that has the potential to generate more computing power and memory storage while using significantly less energy. The researchers were also able to closely study the material, leading to some important findings about the physics behind its unique properties.The study is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers the natural sciences and engineering.
June 23, 2023: The Department of Chemistry hosted sixteen high school teachers earlier this week for a three-day Green and Sustainable Chemistry workshop funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) UMN Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) and the NSF Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program. The workshop aims to provide high school teachers with tools to integrate green and sustainable chemistry into their classrooms. This is the sixth year UMN Chemistry has hosted the workshop, which has now served more than 100 high school instructors.
June 21, 2023: Distinguished McKnight University Professor Ilja Siepmann recently received the 2023 John M. Prausnitz Award. The citation reads: “for profound contributions to molecular modeling of physical properties and phase equilibria, through development and application of robust, transferable intermolecular potentials, novel molecular simulation methods, and service to this community.” The John M. Prausnitz Award, established in 1998, is presented triennially by the International Conference on Properties & Phase Equilibria for Product & Process Design (PPEPPD).
June 21, 2023: University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering Professor Bharat Jalan has received the prestigious Schieber Prize from the International Organization of Crystal Growth in recognition of his scientific leadership and pioneering work in developing the hybrid molecular beam epitaxy growth technique.
June 09, 2023: It’s official: more than 100,000 students in the Twin Cities metro area have engaged with chemistry through the biannual Energy and U program. With the completion of the May 2023 series, the interactive show – which teaches third, fourth, and fifth graders about the First Law of Thermodynamics – surpassed this major education milestone. Energy and U is funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s UMN Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).
June 08, 2023: MRSEC IRG-1 team, led by Chris Leighton and Xiaojia Wang, discovered a new method for tuning the thermal conductivity of materials to control heat flow "on the fly.” Their tuning range is the highest ever recorded among one-step processes in the field, and will open a door to developing more energy-efficient and durable electronic devices.
The researchers’ paper is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the natural sciences. Read the full paper entitled, “Wide-range continuous tuning of the thermal conductivity of La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ films via room-temperature ion-gel gating,” on the Nature Communications website.
May 30, 2023: Ben Magruder and Rohan Chakraborty, chemical engineering graduate students, received 2023 IPRIME poster awards at the spring IPRIME Annual Meeting
May 22, 2023: A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team (Jalan/Nair, IRG-1) has developed a first-of-its-kind, breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner. This research paves the way for scientists to develop better materials for various next-generation applications including quantum computing, microelectronics, sensors, and energy catalysis.
May 15, 2023: MRSEC student Rashmi Choudhary (Jalan/Mkhoyan, IRG-1) is among the 2023-2024 Doctoral Dissertation Fellows. The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) gives the University's most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year. Congratulations!
March 31, 2023: Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese is among 25 awardees named as 2023 Early Stage Investigators by the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE). The awards seek to recognize early career scientists and emerging leaders who have had a significant impact on the field of polymer science and engineering across academia, industry, and national labs.
March 23, 2023: Associate Professor Vivian Ferry (IRG-1, IRG-2) and Professor Christy Haynes (Seed) were awarded a $225,000 grant for their research proposal "Selective detection of chiral pesticides with plasmonic metasurfaces using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy" from the International Institute for Biosensing (IIB), a new globally-engaged institute at the University of Minnesota focused on advancing biosensing research.
This spins off Christy Haynes' MRSEC Seed project "Photonic Properties of Chiral Nanostructures". The project is a collaboration with Ping Wang, and aims to develop a new sensing platform that will detect and differentiate chiral pesticides.
March 15, 2023: Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese has been selected by the Division of Polymer Physics (DPOLY) of the American Physical Society (APS) and the Polymer Physics Group of the Institute of Physics in the United Kingdom (UKPPG) for the 2023 UKPPG/DPOLY Polymer Lecture Exchange. She will serve as the DPOLY representative to the UKPPG and present her research at the 2024 UK Polymer Physics Group Physical Aspects of Polymer Science Meeting on September 11–13, 2024 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Established in 2009, the UKPPG/DPOLY Polymer Lecture Exchange honors faculty members in the early stages of their careers.
March 9, 2023: Professor Rafael Fernandes (IRG-1) has been named a 2023 Distinguished McKnight University Professor. The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship program recognizes outstanding faculty members who have recently achieved full professor status. Recipients hold the title “Distinguished McKnight University Professor” for as long as they remain employed at the University of Minnesota.
February 7, 2023: NAE membership is given to those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education. Lozano and the 2023 cohort will be formally inducted at the NAE Annual Meeting in October.
"Karen Lozano, Julia Beecherl Endowed Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, Texas. For contributions to nanofiber research and commercialization, and mentoring of undergraduate students from underserved populations."
— NAE statement on Lozano's election
January 28, 2023: Rashmi Choudhary, a fourth-year materials science graduate student in the Jalan group, has won the prestigious Ovshinsky Student Travel Award to participate in the 2023 American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting, sponsored by the Division of Materials Physics. Choudhary will present her work on developing a novel molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technique for atomically-precise synthesis of SrIrO3 films, a widely studied material owing to its strain-dependent electronic transport properties, large catalytic activity toward oxygen evolution reaction, and exotic quantum behavior.
January 18, 2023: Mauricio De Leo (MRSEC, CEMS) and Zach McAllister (CEMS), won the competition and split $2,000, with their pitch for "Greener Forward: A sustainable energy storage solution." By powering an ammonia microplant using wind energy during low demand periods, energy can be stored in the form of ammonia for it to be later used as a fuel source as needed. The process increases the yield of ammonia per unit energy by allowing a lower pressure, lower energy conversion relative to the Haber Bosch process thanks to a Mg-based selective ammonia absorbent. Mauricio is a current "UMN MRSEC Graduate Fellow in Honor of Frank Snowden", and a former MRSEC REU student.
January 4, 2023: RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – The Spanish adaptation, “Energía Y TÚ, is a collaborative film that includes chemical demonstrations and natural connections between energy and STEM education. UMN CSE "Energy and U" faculty also received EMMY® Awards for their contributions: Aaron Massari (Chem, Energy and U Director), Frank Bates (MRSEC IRG-2), Marc Hillmyer (Chem), and David Blank (MRSEC Education Director). The Lone Star EMMYs® took place in Dallas on Nov. 12, 2022, and are the Texas Chapter of the Emmys, overseen by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS).
January 04, 2023: For the past twelve years, Reineke has served the ACS journal portfolio through a number of positions. Her first editorial advisory board invitation was from Bioconjugate Chemistry, which she has served on since 2010. Read more via the title link, including an interview on ACS Axial.
January 4, 2023: New work appearing in Nature has uncovered unusual and appealing superconducting properties realized in bilayer MoTe2. This two-dimensional semimetal is formed by stacking two atomically thin layers of MoTe2 in a specific non-centrosymmetric configuration that allows for a phenomenon called ferroelectricity to emerge. This is already surprising, because ferroelectricity is most commonly found in insulating compounds. Even more surprisingly, superconductivity appears together with ferroelectricity, which opens the door for unique and powerful ways to control this quantum state of matter, characterized by electric currents being transmitted without dissipation.
October 17, 2022: Leighton brings wealth of experience and an international reputation. University of Minnesota Twin Cities Professor Chris Leighton has been appointed by College of Science and Engineering Dean Andrew Alleyne as the new director of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).
September 6, 2022: MRSEC graduate student Supriya Ghosh (Mkhoyan, IRG-1) has been awarded the Richard D. Amelar and Arthur S. Lodge Fellowship for Outstanding Collaborative Research in Materials for 2022-23. This award is given to a student whose research interests encompass the overlapping scope of chemistry and chemical engineering and materials science.
August 25, 2022: Professor Rafael Fernandes (IRG-1) performs during Physics Force shows at the Minnesota State Fair.
August 17, 2022: Professor Theresa Reineke (IRG-2) has been named a Prager Chair in Macromolecular Science in the University's Department of Chemistry. The chair is one of two established by the late chemistry Professor Emeritus Stephen Prager and the late Dr. Julie Prager.
June 27, 2022: The Department of Chemistry hosted eighteen high school teachers from Minnesota, South Dakota, and Maine for a three-day workshop (June 20-22) with the goal of learning how to integrate green and sustainable chemistry into their classrooms. The workshop was funded in part by MRSEC, and the Researcher Experience for Teachers (RET) Program
May 12, 2022: MRSEC graduate students John Dewey (Leighton/Jalan, IRG-1) and Grace Kresge (Calabrese, IRG-2) were selected as recipients of the first annual CEMS Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Action and Service (IDEAS) Awards. The awards recognize various contributions to the constant betterment of the shared CEMS community.
May 12, 2022: MRSEC second-year graduate student Mahmoud Matar Abed (Haynes, Seed) has been awarded a GEM Fellowship from the National GEM Consortium. The GEM Fellowship program promotes the participation of underrepresented groups in post-graduate science and engineering education and the technical workforce.
April 29, 2022: MRSEC student Grace Kresge (Calabrese, IRG-2) is among the recipients of the 2022 President's Student Leadership and Service Awards (PSLSA). These awards honor outstanding students for their invaluable leadership and service to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and the community.
April 29, 2022: MRSEC students Will Postiglione (Leighton/Greven, IRG-1) and Supriya Ghosh (Mkhoyan/Jalan, IRG-1), are among the 2022-2023 Doctoral Dissertation Fellows. The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) gives the University's most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year. Congratulations!
April 21, 2022: MRSEC first-year graduate student Casey Wouters (Haynes, Seed) will receive three years of financial support including an annual stipend of $34,000 and a cost of education allowance of $12,000 to the institution. Fellows also benefit from opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.
April 8, 2022: MRSEC alumna Sanja Hameed (Leighton/Greven, IRG-1) received the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA) prize for Outstanding Student Research for elucidation of magnetism and plastic deformation effects in perovskite titanates via neutron scattering and complementary techniques. Each of the prize winners will speak at the American Conference on Neutron Scattering (ACNS) 2022. Congratulations, Sanja!
March 9, 2022: Assistant Professor David Poerschke (Seed) is among ten recipients of the 2022-2024 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship. This University-wide program seeks to advance the careers of the most promising junior faculty members who have potential to make significant contributions to their departments and scholarly fields. Recipients were chosen based on merit, professional promise, quality of publication record, and originality and innovation in research achievements.
February 26, 2022: Bhaskar Das (Leighton, IRG-1) was recently awarded a prestigious American Physical Society (APS) Physics Division of Materials Physics (DMP) Post-Doctoral Travel Award. The DMP Post-Doctoral Travel Awards were established to recognize innovative materials physics research by Post-Doctoral researchers that will be presented at the APS March Meeting.
January 10, 2022: Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese (IRG-2) has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support her project: Beyond alignment: on novel mechanisms for controlling block copolymer phase behavior using magnetic fields. This prestigious award provides support for junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.
December 22, 2021: Associate Professor Vivian Ferry (IRG-2, IRG-1 Collaborator) is a member of the 13-person inaugural Editorial Board of the journal, Physical Review X Energy (PRX Energy) and will serve on the Board for a three year term.
December 14, 2021: Professor C. Daniel Frisbie (IRG-1) reached the Chemistry of Materials’ 1k Club (articles published in Chemistry of Materials that have been cited more than 1,000 times) for “Introduction to Organic Thin Film Transistors and Design of n-Channel Organic Semiconductors" published in 2004, along with Chris Newman, Demetrio da Silva Filho, Jean-Luc Brédas, Paul Ewbank, and Kent Mann.
December 13, 2021: Assistant Professor Jessica Lamb (Seed) was selected for the inaugural PROF Leadership Development Award. The ACS Leadership Development Institute is an invitation-only conference where leaders across the chemical enterprise come together to develop and hone their skills in leadership and management to empower their success as ACS Leadership.
December 9, 2021: Professor David Flannigan (Seed) and recent Ph.D. graduate Yichao Zhang have co-authored a paper detailing the discovery of a new way to easily manipulate and control the properties of two-dimensional sheets of an important class of semiconducting materials that could be used to design next-generation electronic devices. Other MRSEC researchers involved in this project include Professor Ellad Tadmor (Seed) and Tadmor Group member graduate student Moon-ki Choi.
December 2, 2021: Yingying Zhang (Wang, X., IRG-1) won Best Student Poster at the Materials Research Society (MRS) fall meeting in Boston, MA.
November 15, 2021: Assistant Professor Ognjen Ilic (Seed) received the Air Force Young Investigator (YIP) award. The YIP award is awarded to scientists and engineers at United States research institutions who received a Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last seven years and show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research of military interests.
November 10, 2021: Eeshani Godbole, a 5th year chemical engineering PhD candidate advised by CEMS Assistant Professor David Poerschke (Seed) has won the Graduate Excellence in Materials Science (GEMS) Diamond Award from the Basic Science Division of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS).
November 3, 2021: In a ceremony delayed nearly a year due to COVID-19, Karen Lozano (IRG-2, UTRGV PREM) was officially inducted into the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) with the esteemed distinction of NAI Fellow status. The NAI Fellows Program "was established to highlight academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors."
November 2, 2021: Wyatt Curtis (fifth-year ChE graduate student) and Professor David Flannigan (Seed) are co-authors on a research paper that was recently published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (a Royal Society of Chemistry publication) as part of the themed issue "Developments in Ultrafast Spectroscopy." The invited paper has now been selected by the editors as a "2021 PCCP HOT Article"
October 1, 2021: Assistant Professor Boya Xiong (Seed) is investigating the antiviral properties of Moringa oleifera seeds and testing their potential for use as a home-made mask coating that could trap coronavirus and other pathogens.
September 27, 2021: Professor Theresa Reineke (IRG-2) received the 2022 American Chemical Society (ACS) Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award. The Arthur C. Cope Award is awarded for achievement in the field of organic chemistry research.
September 21, 2021: Bryan Cote, a 5th year chemical engineering PhD candidate advised by Associate Professor Vivian Ferry (IRG-2) and Professor Kevin Dorfman (IRG-2), won an award at the recent Minnesota chapter AVS Symposium. The award includes a cash certificate and free AVS membership. Bryan was runner-up for "Best Talk" winning $500. The theme of the symposium was “Vacuum - the Enabling Science and Technology".
June 17, 2021: Associate Professor Vivian Ferry (IRG-2) is among seven new Fellows of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE). Fellows are established in their careers, having demonstrated excellence in one or more subject areas related to the environment and sustainability.
May 26, 2021: Regents Professor Timothy Lodge (IRG-2) has been named the inaugural Prager Chair in Macromolecular Science in Chemistry. The chair is the first of two established by the late College of Science and Engineering Professor Emeritus Stephen Prager and the late Dr. Julie Prager.
May 6, 2021: Associate Professor Bharat Jalan (IRG-1) has won the prestigious Peter Mark Memorial Award from the American Vacuum Society (AVS). The international award is given each year to one young scientist to honor their outstanding theoretical or experimental work. Bharat is recognized for his contributions to the field of molecular beam epitaxy.
March 17, 2021: Assistant Professor Turan Birol (IRG-1, Seed) is among ten recipients of the 2021-2023 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship. This University-wide program seeks to advance the careers of the most promising junior faculty members who have potential to make significant contributions to their departments and scholarly fields.
March 9, 2021: Michelle Calabrese (IRG-2, Seed) is one of the recipients of the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. This award recognizes faculty for outstanding research and leadership and is intended to help young faculty achieve tenure. Recipients of this award are nominated by 3M researchers and selected for their outstanding research, experience and academic leadership.
February 10, 2021: Turan Birol (IRG-1, Seed) has been selected for a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
February 4, 2021: Ognjen Ilic (Seed) is one of the recipients of the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. This award recognizes faculty for outstanding research and leadership and is intended to help young faculty achieve tenure.
January 17, 2021: A research team led by Andre Mkhoyan (IRG-1) and including Turan Birol (IRG-1, Seed) and Bharat Jalan (IRG-1) has made a discovery that blends the best of two sought-after qualities for touchscreens and smart windows—transparency and conductivity. The researchers are the first to observe metallic lines in a perovskite crystal. The finding was made using advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a technique that can form images with magnifications of up to 10 million.
January 11, 2021: A team including MRSEC researchers Bharat Jalan (IRG-1) and Andre Mkhoyan (IRG-1) has discovered a groundbreaking one-step process for creating materials with unique properties, called metamaterials. Their results show the realistic possibility of designing similar self-assembled structures with the potential of creating “built-to-order” nanostructures for wide application in electronics and optical devices.
December 18, 2020: Chris Leighton's (IRG-1) research advancements involving iron pyrite (fool’s gold) are featured in the December 2020 print issue of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.
December 15, 2020: Theresa Reineke's and Tim Lodge's (IRG-2) research is featured in Chemical & Engineering News. The article titled 'Polycation Architecture and Assembly Direct Successful Gene Delivery: Micelleplexes Outperform Polyplexes via Optimal DNA Packaging' was originally published in 2019.
December 4, 2020: MRSEC American Indian Fellow Onri Benally, a research associate in the College of Science and Engineering’s Nano Magnetism and Quantum Spintronics Lab, was featured in CSE News.
October 20, 2020: Professors Steven Koester (IRG-1) and Vlad Pribiag (Seed) are the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator of a five-year, $2 million grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create an international “network-of-networks” that seeks to accelerate the discovery and development of quantum information systems. The 'Global Quantum Leap' (GQL) network partnerships will bridge fundamental knowledge gaps between the nanomanufacturing and quantum information communities, including fundamental process, materials, and integration challenges.
September 29, 2020: Mahesh Mahanthappa (IRG-2) has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) upon the recommendation of the APS Division of Polymer Physics (DPOLY).
September 17, 2020: The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has named J. Ilja Siepmann (IRG-2) editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data.
September 1, 2020: MRSEC researchers Chris Ellison (IRG-2), Andre Mkhoyan (IRG-1), and Vivian Ferry (IRG-2) have earned promotions! Ellison and Mkhoyan have been promoted to the rank of professor and Ferry has been promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure.
August 31, 2020: The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $18,000,000 in renewed funding to the University of Minnesota Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (UMN MRSEC) through 2026. The UMN MRSEC program is among 11 Centers nationwide receiving funding for successful collaborative research. This is the fourth renewal of the Minnesota MRSEC since its inception in 1998, with cumulative total funding exceeding $79 million from NSF.
July 29, 2020: A team of MRSEC IRG-1 researchers led by Chris Leighton, Turan Birol, Rafael Fernandes, working with Augsburg University, has achieved an important breakthrough in magnetoionics. The concept in this emerging field is to direct the motion of ions at interfaces to control magnets in an ultra-energy-efficient manner, using voltage, but little current. This is of high interest for next-generation memory devices. Prior work established that ferromagnetism can be electrically induced and controlled in various types of magnetic materials, but never in an initially nonmagnetic material. Exactly this was achieved here by using ionic liquid gating to voltage induce ferromagnetism in diamagnetic iron disulfide (Fool’s Gold), demonstrating that useful magnetic states can be induced in even nonmagnetic materials, with broad implications.
Funded by the National Science Foundation through the University of Minnesota MRSEC under Award Number DMR-2011401
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