Donald W. Hamer, a 1968 Penn State alumnus and 2013 recipient of the Materials Science and Engineering Honorary Alumni of the Year Award, and his wife Marie Bednar, recently created an endowed professorship in Penn State’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.  Their commitment of $1 million will establish the Hamer...

Neal Lewis, a junior performing undergraduate research in Professor Clive Randall's research group, was recognized at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Wilson Awards Banquet for his second place finish in the Annual Grundy Haven Paper Competition.   The Grundy Haven competition encourages students to bring their research...

The 40th Taylor Lecture was given on April 23, 2013, by P.M. Ajayan, the Benjamin M. & Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Engineering at Rice University. Ajayan is a pioneer in nanotechnology and carbon nanotubes. In the tradition of the Taylor Lecture, three outstanding Penn State faculty were selected to give talks on related topics. To...

Beecher Watson III, undergraduate student advised by Dr. Douglas Wolfe won the "Peter T Luckie Award for Excellence in Research” at the 2013 PSU Undergraduate Research Exhibit in the division of Physical and Health Sciences and Engineering is Penn State's oldest academic honor society.  Congratulations Beecher!

Dr. Michael Hickner received the 2013 Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award on April 23, 2013.  The award honors interdisciplinary materials research at Penn State that yields valuable, unexpected results and recognizes genuine innovation not previously achieved....

We would like to thank all who attended the awards banquet and congratulations to all the award winners! It was, once again, another successful banquet!

2013 Awards Banquet
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Nittany Lion Inn
5:30 pm
 

Masters of Ceremony - Anna Domask, Angela Leone
...

It may sound like an interesting laboratory curiosity, but researchers hope to print flexible electronics on plastic film the same way we print ink on newspapers. In October 2011, Penn State began a multi-year research project in flexible electronics with Dow Chemical Corporation. Scientists at the University's Materials Research Institute...

Michael Schmitt, a graduate student working with Dr. Douglas Wolfe, won Third Place within the Physical Science and Mathematics category at the 2013 Graduate Exhibition for his work "Novel Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBCs) With Unique Microstructures Resulting in Reduced Thermal...

Dr. Long-Qing Chen has been elected as a Fellow of MRS “For contributions to development of the phase-field method and its innovative application to predicting mesoscale microstructural evolution and properties of metallic alloys, oxides and ferroelectrics.”  Congratulations...

Matthew Hollander, a graduate student advised by Dr. Joshua Robinson and Dr. Suman Datta, has been selected to receive the 2012 Best Student Paper Award  at the Device Research Conference (DRC) for his paper titled “High Performance, Large Area Graphene...

Andrew Paul, an undergraduate student working with Dr. Roman Engel-Herbert, was awarded the prestigious Young Scientist Award at the 40^th Conference on the Physics & Chemistry of Surfaces & Interfaces (PCSI). Andrew presented his results to an international...

Dr. James Saal was chosen as the recipient of the 2013 TMS LMD Young Leader Professional Development Award.  In 2010, Dr. Saal received his Ph.D. from Penn State working with Dr. Zi-Kui Liu and currently works at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois as a postdoctoral scholar.

William Yi Wang, a graduate student advised by Dr. Zi-Kui Liu, was awarded TMS LMD best graduate poster, which is titled "Electronic Structure and Properties of Stacking Faults of Mg-X Alloys: A First-Principles Study" at the 142^nd TMS 2013 annual meeting &...

Dr. Guang Sheng was chosen as the recipient of the 2013 TMS Young Leader Professional Development Award.  In 2011, Dr. Sheng received his Ph.D. from Penn State working with Dr. Chen and Dr. Liu and currently works at Scientific Forming Technologies Corporation in Columbus, Ohio as a Principal Research Scientist.

Today’s integrated circuits are limited by power dissipation, heat, which limits the packing density of transistors on a computer chip.  Penn State is an integral part of The Center for Low Energy Systems Technology (LEAST), led by Notre Dame, which explores new concepts for the transistor to dramatically lower the power requirements...

Congratulations to Dr. Long-Qing Chen for receiving the title "Distinguished Professor".  Please take a moment and send Dr. Chen a congratulatory email at chen@matse.psu.edu. ...

Kyle Hart, graduate student working with Dr. Coray Colina, was awarded  the Chemical Computing Group Excellence Award for Graduate Students  for his work "Toward effective CO₂/CH₄ separations by sulfur-containing PIMs: insight from molecular simulations". He will present this work at  the...

Professor Mike (Tze-Chiang) Chung delivered a keynote speech titled "High Value-Added Chemical Industry" in Taiwan.  While there he was able to meet with the president,  Ma Ying-jeou, in the Presidential Palace at Taipei on November 14, 2012.  Professor Chung was invited by the Chinese Institute of Engineers  to...

Materials of fictional superheroes, medical mapping, and the Telica Volcano:  all are among the variety of topics covered in the posters presented on Dec. 5 at Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) first undergraduate poster exhibition, showcasing the variety of research and creative endeavors of its students. Twenty...

Ye Cao, a graduate student working with Dr. Long-Qing Chen, was awarded a gold medal for his poster titled "Phase-field Simulation of Defect Transport and Resistance Degradation Behavior in Single Crystal BaTiO₃" at the annual Materials Research Society (MRS) meeting held in November 2012.  The poster...

We would like to congratulate Lauren Abbott, grad student advised by Coray Colina, on being selected for this year's Emerging Areas in Polymer Science and Engineering Symposium at the 2012 AIChE Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA (October 28 to November 2).This INVITED ONLY session consisted of invited talks exploring both fundamental science...

Jiamian Hu, a previous visiting scholar in the Long-Qing Chen research group from Tsinghua University has received the Diamond Award for Graduate Excellence in Materials Science at the Materials Science and Technology Conference in October 2012.   Jiamian Hu is a graduate student at Tsinghua University working under the direction of...

Houbing Huang, a visiting scientist advised by Professors Long-Qing Chen and Xingqiao Ma, was nominated for the best poster award at the Materials Research Society (MRS) meeting held in November 2012.  Mr. Huang  is a visiting student from the University of Science and Technology in China.  In the poster, he discussed the spin...

Three faculty were recently appointed fellows of the American Physical Society (APS).  The criterion for election is exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise; e.g., outstanding physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education. Fellowship...

Penn State Altoona is one of the key players in a collaborative research endeavor with the Storrs campus of the University of Connecticut, and Scitech Associates Holdings, Inc. of State College, to study the physics of a quantum tunneling device aimed at harnessing the visible portion of the solar spectrum – a feat that has never been...

Please join the department in congratulating Stephen Weitzner on receiving the 2012 Astronaut Foundation Scholarship Award. The Astronaut Scholarship is the largest monetary award given in the United States to undergraduate STEM students based solely on merit.  The chosen scholars exhibit motivation, imagination and exceptional performance...

In 1969, ASM established the Fellow of the Society Honor to provide recognition to members for their distinguished contributions to materials science and engineering and develop a broadly based forum of technical and professional leaders to serve as advisors to the Society.  Dr. Long-Qing Chen was selected as a 2012 AMS Fellow "...

Woldemar Weyl’s research on the properties of glass led to better everyday materials.

He earned worldwide fame as a founder of the modern science of glass. He was among the first Penn State faculty to take an interdisciplinary approach to studying materials science. And he was ahead of his time in advocating an alliance between...

“Raise your hand if you haven’t been touched by cancer," says Mylisa Parette to a roomful of strangers.

Parette, the research manager for Keystone Nano, has occasional opportunities to present her company’s technologies to business groups and wants to emphasize the scope of the problem that still confronts society...

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University has openings for two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant Professor or untenured Associate Professor level to begin as early as July 1, 2013.  The area of expertise is open for both positions, but outstanding candidates with...

Guy Rindone, Professor Emeritus of Ceramic Science and Engineering recently celebrated his 90th birthday.  Professor Rindone was joined by the Hellmann's (John and Kathy), the Messing...

This summer, Penn State began a new partnership with the Dow Chemical Co. to improve laboratory safety at the University. A diverse team of faculty, safety officers and graduate students from the Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering (MATSE), as well as the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS)...

Three Penn State scientists have received national honors for their pioneering research, begun more than 40 years ago, that led to the development of implant materials widely used today in human bone and joint repairs. Della Roy, Eugene W. White and the late Jon N. Weber are among eight researchers nationwide who have been recognized with the...

MatSE bids farewell to four faculty members who have a combined 110 years of service to Penn State.  On September 5, 2012, members of the department gathered for a reception to celebrate and send well wishes to Professors Green, Howell, MacDonald and Painter.  Thank you for your many years of service and leadership.

...

Dan Bucca, PhD '91 Polymer Science, is currently a partner in the law firm McDermott Will & Emery based in Washington, D.C.  He focuses his  practice on procuring, enforcing and licensing patent rights and strategic, worldwide patent portfolio counseling with particular...

US News ranks the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Penn State 10th in their "2013 Best Engineering Schools" report with "materials" as the specialty.  To view the top 10.....

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State, North Carolina State University, the University of Virginia and Florida International University will collaborate on a national nanotechnology research effort to create self-powered devices to help people monitor their health and understand how the surrounding environment affects it, the National Science...

Nasla Duran, a Junior at the University of Puerto Rico, received the best poster award for the REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at Penn State this summer.  The graduate student mentor for Nasla's project entitled, Bioconjugation of fluorescent nanoparticles with target molecules for human breast cancer, was Olisa Pinto, Ph....

Digby MacDonald, Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering has been awarded the 2012 Michael Faraday Medal by the Scientific Council & Industrial Research - Central Electrochemical Research Institute (SCIR-CECRI).  Dr. MacDonald is only the fourth recipient of this prestigious award.  He received the award on...

C. Scott Nordahl '94, '97, Senior Principal Engineer, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems will receive the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) Award for Technical Excellence at the 2012 AISES National Conference in Anchorage, Alaska.

C. Scott Nordahl was born to an Alaska Native mother and adopted by non-...

The department is pleased to announce that Dr. Coray Colina has been awarded tenure effective July 1, 2012.  Congratulations!

The department is pleased to announce that Dr. Qing Wang has been promoted to the rank of Professor effective July 1, 2012.  Congratulations!

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering is pleased to announce that Dr. Nasim Alem will join the MatSE faculty as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering beginning January 2013. Her research interests are focused on the study of structure-property relationships in nanostructural materials, composites, metals and...

Paolo Columbo, Professor of Materials Science and Technology, University of Padova, Italy and Adjunct Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State publishes an article titled "Reactive Fillers to Produce Wollastonite Bioceramics" in the latest issue of...

State High senior Danielle Feffer was one of the 141  students from across the country who were named as 2012 US Presidential Scholar.  The scholars are selected annually on their academic success, artistic excellence, essays, school evaluations, and transcripts, as well as community service, leadership, and commitment to high ideals...

The department is pleased to announce that Ralph Colby, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Editor of the Journal of Rheology is the recipient of the 2012 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology. The Bingham Medal is named after...

The department is pleased to announce that Drs. Elizabeth Kupp, Shunli Shang and Yi Wang  will be promoted from Research Associate to Senior Research Associate in the Department of...

Please join the department in congratulating Professors Painter and Redwing for receiving awards at the 2012 College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Wilson Banquet:

Dr. Paul Painter received the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Paul F. Robertson Award for the Breakthrough of the Year.  Dr. Painter is recognized for developing an...

The department of Materials Science and Engineering is saddened by the news that Charles E. Brackbill passed away on April 10, 2012.  Mr. Brackbill received his bachelor's degree from Penn State in ceramic engineering in 1949.  He was a member of the American Ceramics Society, Keramos Honorary Society, Life Member of the Penn...

Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of peers reviews nominations and selects candidates.

Venkatraman...

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering is pleased to announce the appointment of Joshua Robinson as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Professor Robinson was formerly a research associate for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State....

On March 17, 2012, Thomas Toohig, Erika Kohlhaas, and Jennifer DiStefano received the University President's Freshman Award for achieving 4.0 in their first semester at Penn State. This award is presented annually to undergraduate degree candidates and provisional students who have earned a 4.00 (A) cumulative grade-point average based on...

Congratulations to Seth Berbano (Ph.D. student working with Michael Lanagan and Clive Randall) and Elizabeth Michael (Ph.D. student working with Jeffrey Brownson) for receiving NSF Fellowships.  The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master...

Penn State’s Board of Trustees Friday (March 16) approved the appointment of EYP Architecture and Engineering PC, of Albany, N.Y., as architects for the renovation of the Steidle Building in the historic core of the University Park campus.  More information>...

Long-Qing Chen delivered the keynote lecture titled "Phase-Field Modeling of Microstructure Evolution in Elastically Inhomogeneous Systems" during the Computational Thermodynamics and Kinetics symposium at the annual TMS meeting held March, 2012.  This session was held...

The research of  Materials Science and Engineering Associate Professor, Qing Wang, is included this month in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). Wang and the work of his research group are included in an article titled...

The photograph of the presentation shows, left to right, Peter Thrower, Hui-Ming Cheng (Chair, Asian Association of Carbon Groups), Wesley P. Hoffmann (Chair, American Carbon Society), Michio Inagaki, and Marc Monthioux (Chair, European Carbon Association).

The first Peter A. Thrower Award...

Dr. Robert Kumpf, '84, '86, '88 EAB member and Adjunct member of the faculty, has left Bayer MaterialScience to become Chief Operating Officer of Plextronics, Inc., based in Pittsburgh.

"Plextronics is a late-stage...

We are pleased to announce that Ralph Colby has been named Editor of the Journal of Rheology.  The Society of Rheology was founded in 1929 to foster the study of the mechanical properties of deformable materials and is dedicated to advancing the science of rheology.  ...

Researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MATSE) at Penn State have published their work on the cover of the latest issue of ACS Macro Letters, a new journal in polymer science.  Learn more>>

The Materials Visualization Competition (MVC) 2012 is under way!

MVC is a scientific visual and artistic competition sponsored by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Institute. Created to celebrate the quality of research in Materials at Penn...

Alan Piciacchio, who received a BS in Ceramic Science and Engineering in 1989, followed by an MS in Ceramic Science in 1991, recently achieved the level of Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM, a prestigious accomplishment within IBM’s technical community. Alan’s MS thesis work was under the direction of Dr. Gary Messing and focused...

Mauricio Terrones, Professor of Physics and Materials Science and Engineering has been named a 2011 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  This year, 539 members were named fellows and will receive their recognition on February 18, 2012 during...

Materials Science and Engineering joined the Learning Factory in Fall 2011,
offering senior students an alternative interdisciplinary team choice for
completing their senior capstone project requirement. The Learning Factory
provides a University-Industry partnership where student design projects benefit
industrial...

Penn State authors Long-Qing Chen, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Benjamin Winchester and Jason Britson, both graduate students in the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Materials Science and Engineering publish an article titled "Enhanced electric conductivity at ferroelectric vortex cores in BiFeO₃...

Penn State authors Long-Qing Chen, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Benjamin Winchester and Yijia Gu, both graduate students in the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Materials Science and Engineering publish an article titled "Domain Dynamics During Ferroelectric Switching"  in the latest Science issue....

Professor Long-Qing Chen and colleagues from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China have published an article titled "High-density magnetoresistive random access memory operating at ultralow voltage at room temperature" in Nature Communications.  To view the article,...

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering is pleased to announce the inaugural "Robert E. Newnham Award for Research Excellence". The award recognizes outstanding achievement in research by graduate students enrolled in the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Materials Science and Engineering. The 2011 awardees are Yijia...

Researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Institute at Penn State are part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers from universities and national laboratories across the U.S. who have fabricated piezoelectric thin films with record-setting properties. ...

Penn State authors publish an article titled "Giant Piezoelectricity on Si for Hyperactive MEMS"  in the latest Science issue.  To read this article, click here.

As the slow hand of Father Time moves faculty into retirement, so too does it deposit a coating of dust on hundreds of books in Steidle Building.

Faculty Emeritus Michael Coleman recently cleaned out his office in Steidle Building, soon to be followed in retirement by...

Jack Coppola (pictured above  with Dean William Easterling), retired senior vice president, science and technology for Johns Manville, was awarded the 2011 Graduates of Earth and Mineral Sciences (GEMS) Alumni Achievement Award on November 4, 2011.  Jack received his BS in...

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Gary Messing as Visiting Professor for Senior International Scientists of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics (SIC). In that capacity Dr. Messing will collaborate with SIC scientists and give a series...

Russ Reber '81 METAL was recently promoted to VP of Quality, Technical and Customer Service at Carpenter Technology Corporation. Russ will now be responsible for quality accreditation, NDT, testing laboratories, process/product technology, technical resource recruitment and retention and customer service enhancement. Russ has ten years in...

Professor Zi-Kui Liu has received the 2012 Brimacombe Medalist Award from TMS. This award recognizes an individual with sustained excellence and achievement in business, technology, education, public policy, or science related to materials science and engineering. Winners of this award may be eligible for Acta Materialia Gold Medal, AIME...

Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences has announced the recipient of the 2011 Charles L. Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal, James W. McCauley. McCauley is a chief scientist and ARL Fellow at the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., the highest-ranking scientific position at ARL. ...

Penn State has received a significant grant from ArcelorMittal USA to support student development, recruitment, and diversity in engineering and materials. The grant was awarded through the company’s Campus Partnership Program (CPP), which provides funding to key U.S. colleges and universities to support special programs...

The Undergraduate Research Fellows Program in Materials Science and Engineering was created to provide an opportunity for undergraduate students to pursue research by working with leading scientists and engineers in Materials Science and Engineering. Under the guidance of the fellow’s research advisor, each fellow will go through the...

The Ceramic Educational Council Outstanding Educator Award recognizes truly outstanding work and creativity in teaching, directing student research or the general educational process of ceramic educators. Susan Trolier- McKinstry is professor of ceramic science...

The research group of Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Mike Hickner continues to explore new surface coatings and ionic membranes for antifouling and water treatment applications. Their work, funded by the U.S. Navy, seeks to develop new polymers that resist protein...

Katherine Kragh, PhD student working for Dr Suzanne Mohney was selected as one of the inaugural fellows in the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship Program. She will be studying "Robust Electrical Contacts for Sensors and Electronics for Space Flight" and will have the opportunity to conduct research at NASA Glenn in Cleveland,...

Chosen from more than three dozen submissions, Nittany Extraction Technologies LLC, a start-up company that recently received an investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners/Central and Northern (http://www.cnp.benfranklin.org), was named as one of the winners of the Innovation Expo...

Dr. Maureen L. Mulvihill '89, '91, & '96 has big plans for a very small product.

Mulvihill is the president of the Benner Township company formerly known as Piezo Resonance Innovations, which has been reborn in September as Actuated Medical Inc.

The company has spent the past three years developing...