On Friday, April 21, the Georgia Institute of Technology honored the most outstanding faculty and staff of the 2016-2017 academic year at its annual honors luncheon held in the student center ballroom. The event honors faculty and staff whose service, activities, and accomplishments have been particularly noteworthy over the past year.
Congrats to the winning team, Renotable, from the Earth Day Campus Sustainability Concept Development and Pitch Competition. Students interactively brainstormed potential issues and ways to make sustainable improvements on campus, and then were given personas to cater their ideas to a certain group.
The Library Archives at Georgia Tech has a football helmet from the 1930s. It’s made of leather, with a paltry amount of padding and no face mask. Helmets, and other sports equipment, have changed considerably over the years. This evolution of sports equipment is taught as part of a class called Materials Science and Engineering of Sports (MSE 4803R).
The idea for the class came from the Georgia Tech Athletic Association, where Jud Ready is on the board of trustees.
The Spring 2017 Capstone Design Expo was held April 25 with 1222 graduating seniors representing 11 schools at Georgia Tech, including seven engineering schools. The teams worked in either mono- or interdisciplinary teams on industry or campus created projects to develop various prototypes for real world applications. MSE had 16 teams competing, four of which were interdisciplinary. The winning MSE team, Team Desiigners, consisted of Michael Davidson, Ryan Dwyer, Shawn Gregory, Christopher Lo, and Keshav Swarup.
In the quest to learn more about the fire that caused I-85 to collapse, 11Alive enlisted the help of Professor Karl Jacob. With the help of two Ph.D. students, they performed burn tests of polystyrene plastic cups, as well as polyethylene pipe, the material stored under the interstate.
April 13 brought 45 MSE students competing for cash prizes as well as bragging rights in the MSE 5th Annual Poster Competition. The event was sponsored by Solvay, Phosphor Tech, BioLogic USA, Invista, Sckisui, Hunter Resources, Susan Esche, and Technical Polymers. Award categories were pre-qualifier, undergraduate, biomaterials, nanomaterials, structural materials, energy/electronic materials, polymers, and best in show. Ma Ruilong won best in show.
Researchers in Professor Mohan Srinivasarao's group have found a material used for decades to color food items ranging from corn chips to ice creams could potentially have uses far beyond food dyes.
In a study published March 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers described how a class of water soluble liquid crystals, called lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals, exhibited unexpected characteristics that could be harnessed for use in sensors and other potential applications.
Congratulations to Nicole Kennard who has received a Fulbright Fellowship. She will pursue an MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security at Newcastle University in the UK. Nicole was also a Marshall Scholarship finalist this year.
Congratulations to Michelle Krecker, Elizabeth Quigley, and Emily McGuinness. All three recieved NSF Graduate Fellowships. Honorable mention was given to Cameron Irvin, Eric Hoar, Randy Chang, Shawn Gregory, and Tony Shu.
Augustus Lang was one of six winners in the RBI Poster Competition for his poster "Paper-based electrochromic devices incorporating inkjet-printed PEDOT:PSS electrodes."
Wenshan Cai and his group's research on chiral metamaterials is featured on the NSF home page. The research has demonstrated an optical metamaterial whose chiroptical properties in the nonlinear regime produce a significant spectral shift with power levels in the milliwatt range.
Assistant Professor Josh Kacher received the TMS Young Leaders Professional Development Award last week at the TMS Annual Meeting in San Diego. Josh was selected through the TMS Structural Materials Division Awards Committee.
Professor Rosario Gerhardt has been selected to receive the American Ceramic Society and National Institute of Ceramic Engineering's Arthur L. Friedberg Ceramic Engineering Tutorial and Lecture award. The award honors the memory of Dr. Friedberg for his teaching, research and numerous contributions to the ceramic engineering profession.
Assistant Professor Matthew McDowell has been honored with the 2017 National Science Foundation Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for his research on interfacial transformations in ceramic ion conductors for solid-state batteries. With research focusing on micro and nano materials with specific attention on energy storage applications, McDowell has developed highly sophisticated experimental techniques to study electrochemical transport in materials and at material interfaces.
Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) convert mechanical energy harvested from the environment to electricity for powering small devices such as sensors or for recharging consumer electronics. Now, researchers have harnessed these devices to improve the charging of molecules in a way that dramatically boosts the sensitivity of a widely-used chemical analysis technique.
MSE alumna, Christine Flaherty, B.S. PFE ’06, M.S. PFE MBA ’08, had a busy fall. As Brand Manager of Mr. Clean North America, Chris spent a substantial amount of her time coordinating the Mr. Clean Super Bowl commercial.
Xiaojun Sun and Junki Kim, the 4th year MSE graduate student and the MSE-MS/BS student (GT-PURA recipient, spring 2017), developed a facile synthesis of Au-based cubic nanoboxes as small as 20 nm for the outer edge length, together with well-defined openings at the corners and walls fewer than ten atomic layers (or <2 nm) in thickness. The Au nanoboxes exhibit strong plasmonic absorption in the near-infrared region, consistent with computational simulations. This piece of work has been published at ACS Nano, 2016, 10, 8019-8025.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Wenshan Cai and Assistant Professor Josh Kacher for being selected to receive the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR YIP). Cai and Kacher were two of the 33 recipients selected from over 360 highly qualified applicants. The award is given to scientists whose research holds strong promise across several naval-relevant science and technology areas.
Congratulations to Yunlong Zi for receiving an MRS Postdoctoral Award. The award recognizes postdoctoral scholars who are showing exceptional promise that may include, for example, excellence in scientific research, leadership, advocacy, outreach, or teaching, during their postdoc assignment. Zi was chosen from a large group of nominees “for pioneering research to improve the efficiency and wider applicability of mechanical energy harvesting systems.”
MSE junior Renee Puvvada has been selected as a Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar, funding her research in anti-microbial fabrics for the next year. The Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars program is a competitive fellowship program that serves to develop the next generation of leading bioengineering and bioscience researchers. These fellowships are open to all Atlanta area university students. This year only 22 undergraduate students were selected for this award. Congratulations, Renee!
Congratulations to Professor John R. Reynolds for being named a 2017 MRS Fellow. Reynolds was recognized for his contributions in developing the materials science of pi-conjugated polymers with electrochromic, redox charge storage, photovoltaic, and charge transporting properties
MSE's Shawn Gregory was named as a finalists for the 2017 Hertz Fellowship. Over 700 applicants applied for the fellowship, resulting in 40 finalists. Of those, 12 will be chosen to receive fellowships. Each Fellowship consists of up to 5 years of academic fiscal support valued at $250,000 and research freedom at a participating graduate institution in the United States. The recipients of the 2017 Hertz Foundation Fellowship will be notified in the spring.
Mark Losego, assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, has received a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. Presented by 3M’s Research and Development Community in partnership with 3Mgives, the award recognizes outstanding new faculty who excel in research, experience, and academic leadership. The award will allow Losego to conduct and showcase his scientific efforts to peers and technical employees at 3M Science and Engineering Faculty Day event in St. Paul, MN.
This past year has provided the Georgia Institute of Technology with a number of new partnerships in keeping with the university’s objectives of increased global engagement and preparing its students for “global leadership.” Sundaresan Jayaraman's grant from Kolon Industries Inc. is one such example of a partnership establishing the Kolon Center for Lifestyle Innovation.
MSE alumni Ryan Kincer is on a team of U.S. Navy scientists and engineers at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division (NSWC PCD), that has successfully recreated a natural material used for marine wildlife defense to assist military personnel.
A simple technique for producing oxide nanowires directly from bulk materials could dramatically lower the cost of producing the one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures. That could open the door for a broad range of uses in lightweight structural composites, advanced sensors, electronic devices – and thermally-stable and strong battery membranes able to withstand temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Celsius.
The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named Seth Marder one of its 175 fellows in the class of 2016. Marder is a professor in Georgia Tech’s Schools of Materials Science and Engineering and of Chemistry and Biochemistry, a Georgia Tech Regents’ Professor, the Georgia Power Chair of Energy Efficiency, and the founding director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics.
Former MSE student Emily Gooding has received a Fulbright grant to conduct research at Panzi Hospital, which serves sexual and gender-based violence survivors from the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gooding will be developing operations research methods to increase patient capacity in culturally appropriate ways.
Gooding graduated from MIT this spring with an MS in technology and policy.
Z.L. Wang is published in Materials Today, discussing the theory of nanogenerators in his paper “On Maxwell’s displacement current for energy and sensors: the origin of nanogenerators.”
Congratulations to MSE MetaOptics team of Jinxin Fu, Xujun Zhang, Rachel Borrelli, Mohan Srinivasarao, and Paul Russo. Their project, Particle sizing and diffusion in homogeneous systems, placed second in the MRS iMatSci in November.
MSE Professor Preet Singh was on the winning team to receive the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, AASHTO, Sweet Sixteen award high-value research projects from DOT Commissioner Russell McMurry Dec. 8. Their work on corrosion-resistant concrete piles for marine environments has been used on bridges in Georgia and is being tested for use in nearby states.
MSE Professor Zhiqun Lin has been appointed as an editor for Macromolecular Research (MR), a journal by the Polymer Society of Korea. Macromolecular Research publishes original research on all aspects of polymer science, engineering, and technology, which have not been or are not to be published elsewhere.
Congratulations to Chandana Kolluru and Kristen Parratt for being chosen as finalists in the 2016 Georgia Tech "Three-minute thesis" (3MT®) competition.
The 3MT® concept was developed at the University of Queensland in Australia and it has spread around the globe. Doctoral students compete with oral presentations, strictly limited to three minutes and using only one PowerPoint slide, on their thesis topic.
Cocoon Technologies, consisting of MSE students Zach Robbins, Andrew Sisung, and Kelsey Novak, and BME student Christian Croxton, will be presenting at Create-X Idea To Prototype December 1 in Klaus Commons. Working with faculty advisors Mary Lynn Realff and Paul Russo, the team is developing an innovative football cleat aimed at injury prevention through an advanced lacing system that provides stability and control to the ankle as well as the foot.
MSE Faculty Seung Soon Jang publishes paper in Nature Materials based on collaborative research with Georgia Regents University Dental School faculty David Pashley and Franklin Tay.
The Materials Innovation and Learning Laboratory (The MILL) officially opened on October 28 in conjunction with the MSE External Advisory Board’s fall meeting. The MILL complements the renowned Invention Studio, the student-run makerspace in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, by being the “measure space” with equipment for analysis, creation, characterization, and testing of materials to encourage discovery and hands-on learning of materials science concepts by students from across the Institute.
Georgia Tech and Kolon Industries have signed a historic agreement to establish the Kolon Center for Lifestyle Innovation (KCLI), an interdisciplinary research center, which will bring together faculty and students from across Georgia Tech to explore the role of advanced materials and manufacturing in bringing about lifestyle innovation through world-class research and development. Kolon will initially invest $3 million over a five-year period to establish the Center.
The 4th Annual MSE Industry Day was well attended, with 25 industry representatives participating in the event held October 27 at the Fuller E. Callaway Jr. Manufacturing Research Center (MaRC).
Assistant Professor Matt McDowell has been awarded an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) grant through the Young Investigator Research Program (YIP). The YIP is open to scientist and engineers at research institutions across the United States who received Ph.D. or equivalent degree in the last five years and who showed exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. McDowell's anticipated research area for this award is "Reaction-Induced Sintering for Fabrication of Bulk Nanoporous and Composite Metals."
Professor Zhiqun Lin's research "1D nanocrystals with precisely controlled dimensions, composition, and architectures" was published in the September 15 issue of Science.
Park, MS TE '95, was one of five women honored at the Diversity Symposium reception on Thursday, September 15, during the event hosted by Institute Diversity, Center for the Study of Women, Science, and Technology, Women in Engineering, and the Women's Resource Center. Park is co-founder and CTO of Sarvint Technology Inc. While at Tech, Park co-invented the world's first Wearable Motherboard™, or "Smart Shirt."
Fabrics that can generate electricity from physical movement have been in the works for a few years. Now researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have taken the next step, developing a fabric that can simultaneously harvest energy from both sunshine and motion.
Combining two types of electricity generation into one textile paves the way for developing garments that could provide their own source of energy to power devices such as smart phones or global positioning systems.
Rankings from U.S. News & World Report released this week ranked MSE No. 6, up from No. 7 last year. CoE moves from No. 5 to No. 4, tied with Cailfornia Institute of Technology.
Gleb Yushin has been appointed as a co Editor-in-Chief for Materials Today, the flagship journal of the Materials Today family, dedicated to covering the most innovative, cutting edge and influential work of broad interest to the materials science community.
Meta Optics, a research equipment startup that provides small, accurate, rugged particle-sizing devices to research labs, field service agents and relevant manufacturing industries, completed the CREATE-X Startup Summer, a 12-week intensive course for student teams to launch startups based on their ideas, inventions, and prototypes. Create-X provides space, grant money, coaching, curriculum, intellectual property protection, and visibility for new start-ups.
Collen Leng has been selected as a recipient of the Thin Film Division Graduate Student Award by the American Vacuum Society (AVS). The award, along ith a $500 check, will be presented at the AVS dinner and annual program planning meeting in October in Nashville.
As a winner of the Graduate Student Award, Leng is also a finalist for the James Harper Award.
The International Association of Advanced Materials has awarded the honor of “Advanced Materials Laureate (AM Laureate) for the year 2016’’to Z.L. Wang, due to his notable and outstanding contribution in the field of “Advanced Materials Science and Technology". Wang will receive this award during the ceremony of European Advanced Materials Congress 2016 on 23rd August 2016 at Seaside Auditorium, M/S Mariella, Viking Line Cruise, Stockholm, Sweden.
Tyler Collins, MSE, was hesitant to attend the American Ceramic Society's HTCMC9, GFMAT 2016, but soon discovered the bridge between different branches of science.
Congratulations to Brian Doyle, MSE Ph.D. student and NSF Fellow. Doyle has been selected to participate in the Joint-US African Materials Institute in Arusha Tanzania. JUAMI is a two week global seminar taught by leading materials scientists and engineers. JUAMI is co-hosted by the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST). Building on the success of the first JUAMI school, the lectures will focus on Materials for Sustainable Energy, covering areas from dye-sensitized solar cells to thermoelectrics and fuel cells.
Following the retirement of Fred Cook, Mary Lynn Realff has been named Associate Chair for Undergraduate Programs. Realff brings extensive experience, passion, and interest in working with students, and will bring new ideas for taking our undergraduate program to the next level of excellence.
"The Wearables Revolution and Big Data: the Textile Lineage" by Sundaresan Jayaraman and Sungmee Park was published in the Journal of the Textile Institute and explores the impact of modern day wearable technology.
Congratulations to Hamid Garmestani for his election a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Garmestani is also a Fellow of ASM International.
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of 60 WW Georgia Teaching Fellows for 2016. Among them are five Georgia Tech alumni—Sara Turmel (B.S. 2016), Michael Fusia (B.S. 2016), Deidre Paris (Ph.D. 2002), Wanda Harding (M.S. 1993), and Jill Furstenau (B.S. 1986). The new Fellows were introduced at an event today with Governor Nathan Deal.
Congratulation to the Reynolds Group for being one of the winners at the IEN poster session held on May 17, 2016 with their entry "Full Color Control and High-Resolution Patterning from Inkjet Printable Cyan/Magenta/Yellow Colored-to-Colorless Electrochromic Polymer Inks", by Anna Osterholm; Eric Shen; David Gottfried; Prof. John R. Reynolds - (authors).
Congatulations to Nikhil Shukla, MSE, Chris Cappa, IE, and Ching-Chi Tu, IE. Their team received 2nd place out of 200+ teams and 1200+ student applicants in the Accenture Innovation Challenge. They were the first Georgia Tech team to make it to the National Finals at the World Wildlife Fund HQ in Washington DC. They pitched solutions to the WWF problem of food waste in grocery retailer space. Many parts of their solution/ analysis will be implemented by the WWF and Accenture.
Congratulations to Simiao Niu for receiving the MRS Silver Graduate Student Award for a presentation on EE7: Mechanics of Energy Storage and Conversion—Batteries, Thermoelectrics and Fuel Cells at the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco.
With 110 teams competing in the Spring 2016 Capstone Design Expo, the overall winner, Hub Hygiene, was composed of an interdisciplnary team of Mary Catherine Adams, MSE, Timothy Gassner, BME, Pranav Godbole, ME, You Keun Kim, BME, Bharathwaj Nanadagopal, BME, and Ruifu Shi, BME. Their project, sponsored by the Georgia Tech Research Institute, was a device that cleans a needless IV connector to reduce bloodstream infection rates.
The Georgia Tech Women in Engineering (WIE) challenges and inspires women to achieve their fullest potential as engineers and as leaders, and celebrates their accomplishments and success.
The following MSE students received corporate scholarships at the WIE Banquet, April 12.
Congratulations to MSE's Yuntong Zhu for winning 3rd Place Oral Presentation in the 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium for her project "Density Function Theory Modeling of Boron Doped Graphene for Energy Storage Applications." The symposium, Georgia Tech's largest undergraduate research colloquium, was held Tuesday, April 19 in the Student Center.
Congratulations to Z.L. Wang for being awarded the Georgia Tech Outstanding Achievement in Research Innovation Award. This award recognizes the faculty member as working at the forefront of discovery, application and deployment of technology, whose research results have had a demonstrable and sustained external economic, social, or policy impact.
GIZMODO of Australia delves into the unique challenge of providing food to astronauts in space, calling Sandra Magnus, Ph.D. CerE '96, and MSE External Advisory Board member, the undisputed champion of space food hacking due to her creative cooking experiments aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 18.
Team "Bac-Off" consisting of Shawn Gregory, MSE, Brandon Holt, BME, Kristin Andreassen, ID, Murtaza Ali, IE, and Jonathan Striepen, Bio, won the Ideas to Serve Competition (I2S) this past weekend. I2S awards entrepreneurial products or programs that create a better world. "Bac-Off” is an inexpensive antimicrobial spray for clothing and other textiles that prevents the spread of bacteria.
A team that can better remove heat from your electronic devices won Georgia Tech’s 2016 Startup Competition ($10,000 prize). The team, BanyanTech, consisting of MSE Ph.D. candidate Matt Smith, MBA students Akshay Ravi and Ajaay Ravi, as well as Emory law students Forrest Lind and Lorrin Stone.
BanyanTech, evolved through Georgia Tech’s Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (TI:GER) program. The program teams Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business MBA students with Emory law students who work together on commercializing a Ph.D. student’s scientific research.
Professor Lin reported “Monodisperse Dual-Functional Upconversion Nanoparticles-Enabled Near-Infrared Organolead Halide Perovskite Solar Cells” in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (M. He et. al., Angew Chem Int Ed., 55, 4280 (2016)).
"CRAFTed with Pride," a collaborative led by Sundaresan Jayaraman, and funded in part by the Walmart U.S. Manufacturing Innovation Fund, has been awarded one of thisyear's Top 10 Textile Innovations Awards by FabricLink Network.The awards recognize those organizations and people, whose originality and creativity enhance performance and bring new textile ideas to life.
Professor Fred Cook has been selected to receive the Olney Medal, the highest award presented by the AATCC for outstanding achievements in textile or polymer chemistry or other fields of major importance to textile science. The award will be presented at the AATCC's International Conference in Williamsburg, VA in April.
Congratulations to Beibei Jiang, recipient of a 2016 COPE Graduate Student Fellowship. Jiang is only one of four students at Georgia Tech to receive this fellowship.
Congratulations to Z.L. Wang for being awarded the SURA Distinguished Scientist Award. The award will be presented during the April meeting of the SURA Board of Trustees meeting at North Carolina State University.
Rosario Gerhardt, professor and Goizueta Foundation Faculty Chair, is profiled in the newly published book Ceramic and Glass Scientists and Engineers: 100 Inspirational Profiles by Lynnette Madsen, published by the American Ceramic Society and Wiley Publications. The book profiles women from 29 countries, providing overviews of their successful careers and the challenges they faced.
Congratulations to Tim Bunning, MSE Adjunct Professor and AFRL Materials Chief Scientist, for being named a 2016 MRS Fellow. The MRS fellow honors members who are notable for their distinguished research accomplishments and their outstanding contributions to the advancement of materials research, world-wide.
Assistant Professor Mark Losego's research, "Selective area epitaxy of magnesium oxide thin films on gallium nitride surfaces" is featured in the Journal of Materials Research, Special Issue, Early Career Scholars in Materials Science.
The third annual MSE Industry Day was held October 29. The day began with panel presentations from industry representatives who discussed their corporate experiences and what companies are looking for when hiring. Representative from Kimberly-Clark Corp, The Coca-Cola Company, ExxonMobil, the Boeing Company and DuPont spoke to the graduate students. Undergraduates heard from representatives from Phillips 66, EcoLab, Halyard Health, Shaw Industries, and Phenetix.
Jason Allen, a MSE PhD student advised by Professors Garmestani and Fujimoto, recently received notification his manuscript, entitled “In situ X-ray nanotomography of metal surfaces during electropolishing," has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports, an online, open access journal from the publishers of Nature.
MSE Professor Satish Kumar and Emory Professor of Medicine Young-sup Yoon's proposal "Human mesenchymal stem cell-driven immunomodulation for enhanced engraftment of human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs),” was selected from a very competitive group of proposals for the Collaborative Seed Grants in ImmunoEngineering.
Zhong Lin Wang, who invented piezotronic and piezophototronic nanogenerators, is one of three in the Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates physics category. In that same category, he was also named the 2015 People’s Choice Winner for a Nobel Prize.
The Georgia Institute of Technology ranks as the seventh best engineering university in the world, according to the 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The annual rankings have been compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University since 2003. The data used in calculating the rankings is primarily focused on the quality of research, quality of faculty, and academic performance in several broad academic subject matter areas.
Professor Srinivasarao's paper, Spontaneous Emergence of Chirality in Achiral Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystals Confined to Cylinders, has been published in Nature Communication.
Recently, the laboratory team of Dr. C.P. Wong and Ph.D. candidate Liyi Li discovered a chemical process that may make 3D packaging development more productive with lower overall costs.
A Georgia Tech research team lead by Professor Satish Kumar has developed a novel technique that sets a new milestone for the strength and modulus of carbon fibers. This alternative approach is based on an innovative technique for spinning polyacrylonitrile (PAN), an organic polymer resin used to make carbon fibers.
Professor Vogel serves guest editor for the July 2015 issue of the Materials Research Society Bulletin on "2D Layered Transition Metal Dichalcogenides."
As Chairman, President & CEO of YKK Corp of America, Alex Gregory (Text '70) doesn't have a lot of spare time so we are honored that mentoring our students is one of the few things he does when not working.
More than 40 Georgia Tech graduate students and postdoctoral fellows recently attended the 2015 Future Faculty Workshop. Organized by Institute Diversity and supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, the workshop focused on preparing women for faculty positions while still achieving work-life balance.
Congratulations to Hamid Garmestani for being named a ASM International Fellow. The honor of Fellow represents recognition of Garmestani's distinguished contributions in the field of materials science and engineering, and develops a broadly based forum for technical and professional leaders to serve as advisors to the Society.
MSE students Jamie Curtis and Nicole Kennard, as part of Georgia Tech's Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW), have progressed as finalist in the Ford Community Challenge. Their proposal for the "Building Sustainable Communities" challenge is to design and build a hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic systems greenhouse on campus to produce an eco-friendly system to provide low cost produce to community families. Winners of the $25,000 prize will be announced in September.
Theory turns to reality for nonlinear optical metamaterials.
A research team has realized one of the long-standing theoretical predictions in nonlinear optical metamaterials: creation of a nonlinear material that has opposite refractive indices at the fundamental and harmonic frequencies of light. Such a material, which doesn’t exist naturally, had been predicted for nearly a decade.
Professor Vogel and his team are collaborating with two Irish institutions to find improved methods for detecting bovine respiratory disease with a portable device to test for infection on site.
From a new breed of fuel cell technology to multifunctional batteries, Georgia Tech professors explore energy storage to make renewables less expensive and more reliable.
Congratulations to GIW Reinforcers for winning best MSE project at the 2015 Capstone Design Expo held April 24 at McCamish Pavilion.
The GIW Reinforcers team consisted of Brenda Beckler, Marika Manuud, Arturo Salmeron, Sabria Struthers, and Michelle Wu. One of 11 MSE projects, Georgia Iron Works sponsored GIW Reinforcers. The project aimed at determining a binder system to hold together ceramic particles as a structure. This ceramic structure is intended to be cast with iron to reinforce pumps in areas that experience high wear.
Congratulations to Bailey Risteen, Drew Gorman and Cornelia Rosu for being selected as one of four finalist teams to compete in the BASF 150th Anniversary North American Science Competition. The competition will focus on lightweight solutions for a sustainable future. The finalist teams receive a $5000 prize and compete for an all-expense paid trip to the BASF International Summer Course at BASF Headquarters in Ludwigshafen Germany in August. Team presentations will be held the first week of June at the BASF Headquarters in Florham Park, FL.
Congratulations to Z.L. Wang's students for the following awards.
Long Lin, Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad, 2015, CRIDC innovation award, Georgia Tech, 2015, MSE poster competition award (3rd place in energy/electronic materials), Georgia Tech, 2015.
Simiao Niu received the Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Silver Award, 2015, CRIDC best poster award, Georgia Tech, 2015.
Adjunct Professor Tim Bunning has been promoted to Chief Scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Professor Lin's paper entitled “A general route to nanocrystal kebabs periodically assembled on stretched flexible polymer shish (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500025)” has been published in Science Advances, a newly launched Science family journalfeaturing high quality, peer-reviewed research across the sciences—in an open access, digital-only format.
The American Chemical Society highlights the work of John Reynold's team in their research on polymers that use electrical current to change color. Potential use for this research includes window-tinting and sunglasses that change color at the press of a button.
Each month the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership profiles Georgians who are involved in manufacturing. This month they feature professor Ken Gall and MSE External Advisory Board Member Kurt Jacobus, company principals of Atlanta-based MedShape.
In the 2016 U.S. News & World Report ranking of engineering schools, the MSE graduate program was ranked #6 in the nation. Georgia Tech ranked #2 among public engineering schools, and #6 overall.
As in the last three rankings, all College of Engineering's specialties were ranked in the top ten in their respective field, making Georgia Tech the only institution in the nation to garner top ten rankings for all of its engineering graduate programs in four straight years.
Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, associate professor of mechanical and materials science engineering and frequent user at the Spallation Neutron Source, recently finished a six-month sabbatical at ORNL, which introduced her to more of the lab's research.
PayScale.com released its annual list of top colleges based on students’ return on their tuition investment, and Georgia Tech is again among the top 10 on the list of public and private institutions nationwide.
Tech ranks 8th, right after MIT. Most of the colleges where students reap the greatest financial returns on their college investments are engineering schools.
Polymers that use electrical current to change color now have a broader palette for potential uses, such as in sunglasses and window-tinting.
By developing electrochromic polymer materials in a range of primary and secondary colors and combining them in specific blends, the researchers have covered the color spectrum.
The materials could be used to make sunglasses that change from tinted to clear in a matter of seconds, at the press of a button. Even greeting cards could change color through the application of low-voltage electrical current.
Tech spotlighted for return on investment, affordability, and career placement.
Georgia Tech continues to place highly on rankings of American colleges and universities. The Princeton Review’s latest collegiate ranking focuses on a couple of primary concerns for college students and their families: landing a job and securing a good salary.
Professor Rosario Gerhardt has been appointed as the Goizueta Foundation Faculty Chair, effective August 15, 2015.
The appointment is in recognition of Professor Gerhardt as a leader in the scholarly community, as well as for her strong leadership on diversity issues.
The chair has a five-year term with possibility of renewal.
The publication, "An Experimental Insight into the Structural and Electronic Characteristics of Strontium-Doped Titanium Dioxide Nanotube Arrays" by Faisal Alamgir and Hamid Garmestani is featured on the cover of Advanced Funtional Materials, Nov. 19, 2014.
Professor Robert Speyer and his research group are investigating novel methods for making body armor strike faces for use by the military and others.
They are studying boron carbide, the third-hardest material on earth, and their research has resulted in patented techniques for making highly effective armor. One outcome of their efforts is Verco Materials LLC, an Atlanta-based startup that produces strike-face armor for personnel protection as well as for ongoing research and development.
Meisha Shofner, associate professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), and Carson Meredith, professor and associate chair for graduate studies in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering are representing Georgia Tech in a multi-entity partnership to use nanocellulose-polymer composites to be an economical and eco-friendly substitute for carbon-fiber composites used in luxury automobiles.
Z.L. Wang, Regents’ Professor, Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Electric and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology is the winner of the prestigious 2014 World Technology Award for Materials. Professor Wang was selected amongst a group of five finalists in the field of Materials.
A team from Georgia Tech, led by Vladimir Tsukruk, have measured the mechanical properties of soft contact lenses under practical conditions using an atomic force microscope (AFM).
The second annual MSE Industry day was held October 30. The day began with panel presentations from industry representatives who discussed their corporate experiences and what companies are looking for when hiring. Representative from Ginn Mineral Technology, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, Ecolab, and PepsiCo spoke to the graduate students. Undergraduates heard from representatives from Invista, Halyard Health, TKIS, and Consultants and Builders, Inc.
Eric Vogel has been appointed Deputy Director of the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) and Associate Director of Shared Resources for the Institute for Materials (IMat).
Researchers from Columbia Engineering and the Georgia Institute of Technology have reported the first experimental observation of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), resulting in a unique electric generator and mechanosensation devices that are optically transparent, extremely light, and very bendable and stretchable.
On Monday, September 29, Dr. Jennifer A. Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, delivered MSE’s 7th Annual Brumley D. Pritchett Lecture to a packed house. It was estimated that more than 175 people were in attendance. Attendees included students and faculty from across campus, as well as representatives from a number of different industries.
A very short version of FIFA’s World Cup took place at the Georgia Tech campus on Saturday, September 20, 2014. As part of a series of events to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM) on campus, Tech’s Hispanic/Latino student organizations and the Office of Hispanic Initiatives organized the first Mini-World Cup at Georgia Tech. HHM events at Georgia Tech recognize the economic, cultural and social contributions and achievements of Latinos in the U.S.
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Ali Adibi, ECE, and Ken Sandhage, MSE, have developed a novel method for improving silicon-based sensors used to detect biochemicals and other molecules in liquids. The simplified approach produces micro-scale optical detection devices that cost less to make than other designs, and provide a six-fold increase in sensitivity to target molecules.
A collaborative led by Sundaresan Jayaraman was awarded a Walmart U.S. Manufacturing Innovation Fund from Walmart, the Walmart Foundation and the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM). The announcement came at the 2014 U.S. Manufacturing Summit in Denver, where a total of seven leading research and development institutions were awarded $4 million in grants to create new processes, ideas and jobs that will foster America’s growing manufacturing footprint.
Incoming Freshman Keith Coffman, dual major MSE and physics, is one of 90 regional finalists in the Google Science Fair. Of the 30 finalists from the Americas region, he is also a finalist for the contest’s Computer Science Award. Coffman’s submission is a system that uses superconductors to control the propulsion of mag-lev trains, which have traditionally used magnets to levitate above the train tracks.
Mark D. Losego joined MSE as assistant professor in July. Previously an assistant research professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University, Losego earned his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University. He conducted his postdoctoral research in nano-scale heat transport at the University of Illinois. Losego’s research focuses on understanding transport phenomena at organic / inorganic interfaces and within three-dimensionally nanostructured systems used in energy and environmental applications.
With support from the National Science Foundation, a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing a new, portable, clean energy source that could change the way we power mobile electronics: human motion.
Meilin Liu, Regents' Professor and Associate Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, has received a prestigious Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to expand work with fuel cells.
Congratulations to Sihong Wang for winning the MRS Silver Graduate Student Award for a presentation on High-Power Triboelectric Nanaogenerators and it's Hybridization with Li-Ion Battery as a Sustainable Flexible-Power-Unit at the MRS 2014 Spring Meeting in San Francisco.
Professor Vladimir Tsukruk has been selected as Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS). He will be formally honored at the 2014 ACS National meeting in San Francisco on August 11, 2014.
The annual NANOSMAT Prize recognizes, substantiates, and honors high calibre scientists for their professional leadership, originality, and innovations in research and development relating to nanoscience and nanotechnology with a particular focus on nanomaterials. Wang was awarded the prize based on his breakthrough and inspitational research in the field of nano-piezo and nano-ferroelectric materials.
The award will be presented at the 9th NANOSMAT conference at Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland in September.
More than 900 students and 170 teams from eight schools and three colleges participated in the 2014 Capstone Design Expo held April 24 in the McCamish Pavilion. The MSE team of Michael McDonald, Kevin Bogaert, Parker Frost, Nick Savage, and Hank Marcacci worked with Simmons Bedding Company. Their task was to investigate the implementation of a wave spring core mattress as an alternative to conventional coil spring core mattress. Winning Best in MSE, their efforts landed them a $1000 cash prize.
MSE was well represented in the winners at the 2014 Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium. Approximately 240 students presented at the annual event held April 23 in the Student Center Ballroom. Prizes were awarded to the top poster and oral presentation from each college.
Former Ph.D. student, Marilyn Minus (PTFE Ph.D '08, B.S. '02), recently received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award for her research in understanding directionally templated interphase processing-structure development and relationships in polymer nano-composite Materials. Minus is currently an assistant professor at Northeastern University.
Each year, the College of Engineering recognizes select alumni who have contributed to the profession, advanced in their careers, and advanced the lives of others both personally and professionally. This year, the College of Engineering Awards Induction Ceremony was held Saturday, April 5, 2014 at the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta. The following MSE alumni were recognized:
Today's girls are our future engineers - they naturally possess the creativity and analytical and communication skills that are the signature traits of an engineer. We must inspire them to dream big, reach higher, and pursue their passions. Join Project Lead The Way in introducing girls to the exciting career of engineering!
Professor Ken Sandhage has been selected to receive Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award for the Development of Graduate Research Assistants.
Professor Ken Gall, has been selected to receive the Senior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. The Faculty Honors Committee was particularly impressed by Ken's extensive engagement with undergraduates from across the Colleges of Engineering and Sciences, and with how he has facilitated these researchers' success. This award will be presented at the Faculty/Staff Honors Luncheon on
Professor Z.L. Wang has been selected to receive the Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award. The award recognizes his tremendous impact on the Institute as a teacher and researcher, and is the highest award given to a faculty member at Georgia Tech.
Professor Wang introduced an innovative noncontact, free-rotating disk triboelectric nanogenerator (FRD-TENG) for sustainably scavenging the mechanical energy from rotary motions. Its working principle was clarified through numerical calculations of the relative-rotation-induced potential difference, which serves as the driving force for the electricity generation.
The Defense Manufacturing Technology Achievement Award recognizes and honors those individuals from government and the private sector most responsible for outstanding technical accomplishments that further the achievement of the vision of the Department of Defense (DoD) Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program. That vision is to "realize a responsive world-class manufacturing capability to affordably meet the Warfighters' needs throughout the defense system life cycle." Sponsored by the Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology Panel (JDMTP) the award was established in 1999.
WEARABLE computers are on their way and soon you'll be able to power them yourself. A new type of nano-generator converts movement from walking into electricity to keep your gadgets going.
Wearable generators often use electromagnetic induction, which is efficient but requires bulky, heavy magnets. Smaller, lighter piezoelectric generators use ceramic crystal to convert pressure into voltage, but they are expensive and a lot less efficient.
A professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Zhong Lin Wang is using what’s technically known as the triboelectric effect to create surprising amounts of electric power by rubbing or touching two different materials together.
Professor Paul Russo, Hightower Chair in Biopolymers, joined the MSE family starting January 2014. Dr. Russo came to MSE from Lousiana State University where he was a faculty member in the Department Chemistry. As Hightower Chair, Russo will continue to specialize in macromolecular chemistry and materials science.
Congratulations to Professor C.P. Wong for his election as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He will be officially inducted into the Academy at the 2014 CAE Annual Meeting in Beijing in June 2014.
Peng Bai and Guang Zhu won the MRS best poster award and Long Lin won the silver medal for MRS graduate student award at the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit.
Researchers have created magnetic replicas of sunflower pollen grains using a wet chemical, layer-by-layer process that applies highly conformal iron oxide coatings. The replicas possess natural adhesion properties inherited from the spiky pollen particles while gaining magnetic behavior, allowing for tailored adhesion to surfaces.
A pair of carbon nanotube arrays will be flying in space by the end of the year to test technology that could provide more efficient micro-propulsion for future generations of spacecraft. Part of a Cube Satellite (CubeSat) developed by the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), the arrays will support what is expected to be the first-ever space-based testing of carbon nanotubes as electron emitters.
Gregory Cooke, an MSE freshman was accepted into the Leading Edge program. This initiative is a new leadership development program for undergraduates at Tech to coach students in areas of Communication & Self Awareness, Managing and mobilizing change, crafting an entrepreneurial mindset and the importance of being Globally and Civically engaged just to name a few.
Undergraduate student Emily Gooding was chosen to attend the Naval Academy Science and Engineering Conference (NASEC) in Washington, DC.
The U.S. Naval Academy, a leading institution of higher education with strong programs and emphases in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), hosted an annual conference to bring policy makers and science advisors together with university faculty and students to meet and discuss significant science and engineering issues and challenges.
Dr. Rosario Gerhardt's PhD students, Tim Pruyn and Rachel Muhlbauer, were awarded two out the ten GEMS awards available at the MS&T conference in Montreal. GEMS stands for Graduate Excellence in Materials Science. Both students gave talks that were very well attended and there lots of questions were asked.
Professor Zhong Lin Wang has received a prize worth $10,000 for his contributions to the ZnO nanostructures field in sensing, energy harvesting, and piezotronics.
Professor Z.L. Wang has been selected by his peers as a Finalist for this year's World Technology Award for MATERIALS, presented in association with TIME, Fortune, CNN,and Science (see the finalists below). As a finalist, he is now a Fellow of the World Technology Network and part of this peer-elected, global community of the most innovative people in science and technology and related fields.
2013 World Technology Award for MATERIALS Finalists
MSE Graduate Student Parisa Pooyan received the National Science Foundation Fellowship Award for the 2013 Summer Institute on Nanomechanics, Nanomaterials and Micro/Nanomanufacturing, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Her advisors are Professors Hamid Garmestani (MSE) and Cyrus Aidun (ME).
The President’s Scholarship is Georgia Tech’s most prestigious merit award and is offered annually to about 50 incredible high-school seniors who have demonstrated superb leadership skills, are among the top few in their class in academic performance, and show promise of continuing such performance. One of the 2013 recipients is MSE’s Nicole Kennard, a student from Acworth, GA.
On the second anniversary of President Barack Obama’s establishment of the Materials Genome Initiative, the Georgia Institute of Technology has announced the launch of its Institute for Materials (IMat). IMat is the newest of Georgia Tech’s nine Interdisciplinary Research Institutes. It results from an investment of nearly $10 million that Georgia Tech has committed through 2018 to establish an interdisciplinary materials innovation ecosystem. IMat will play a leadership role in accelerating materials discovery, development and application.
computers are on their way and soon you'll be able to power them yourself. A new type of nano-generator converts movement from walking into electricity to keep your gadgets going.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Zhong Lin Wang is using what’s technically known as the triboelectric effect to create surprising amounts of electric power by rubbing or touching two different materials together.
Professor Zhong Lin Wang has received a prize worth $10,000 for his contributions to the ZnO nanostructures field in sensing, energy harvesting, and piezotronics.
The President’s Scholarship is Georgia Tech’s most prestigious merit award and is offered annually to about 50 incredible high-school seniors who have demonstrated superb leadership skills, are among the top few in their class in academic performance, and show promise of continuing such performance. One of the 2013 recipients is MSE’s Nicole Kennard, a student from Acworth, GA.