PROFESSOR YAYOI TAKAMURA is chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UC Davis. She joined UC Davis in 2006 and became vice chair of the department in 2017 before becoming chair in July 2020. She is the first woman to lead the department.
Materials science and engineering alumnus Tim Dyer '90, '93, now the president of Elcon Precision, remembers the UC Davis Egg Drop contest, hosted by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) during National Engineer's Week 1990.
Materials science and engineering assistant professor Scott McCormack has received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award. The award recognizes young faculty who have the potential to be leaders in their fields as researchers and educators by funding projects that should serve as the foundation for the rest of their careers.
Materials science and engineering (MSE) professor Ricardo Castro may not be as much of a “mad scientist” as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but he does dare to ask intriguing questions like, “why must Thor’s hammer (Mjölnir) be thought of as a fictional item, unachievable in the real world?”
Materials science and engineering alumna Emily Beeman ’17 draws on her UC Davis experience every day as she helps keep UC Berkeley’s Marvell Nanofabrication Lab running.
Starting this year, the UC Davis College of Engineering is proud to recognize four outstanding graduate students with the College of Engineering Graduate Student Awards.
These awards honor the achievements and contributions of engineering graduate students for their research and service. Nominations were open to any M.S. and Ph.D. student enrolled in a graduate program in the college. Each award recipient will receive a $500 scholarship and their name will be added to a permanent display located in the Kemper Hall lobby.
Materials science and engineering (MSE) Ph.D. student Yiqing Xia has been chosen as a presenter for the 2021 North American Materials Colloquium Series, a competitive virtual materials science seminar series involving over 35 MSE programs from around the country. He will present his recent research on the thermodynamic and kinetic behavior of nano-confined liquids on April 8-9, representing UC Davis, the MSE department and his research on confined liquids and glassy materials.
The Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) is offering an apprenticeship for undergraduate students in the UC Davis Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE).
The apprenticeship, which can run between a summer and an entire year, gives undergraduate students an opportunity to conduct hands-on, U.S. Army-supported research and gain experience in a laboratory while being mentored by top researchers across the country.
Materials science and engineering (MSE) professor Jeffery Gibeling has won the 2021 Oleg D. Sherby Award from the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS). The award, named in honor of materials science trailblazer Oleg Sherby, recognizes individuals or groups who have made significant contributions to understanding how materials behave at high temperatures.
Materials science and engineering Ph.D. student Meghna Srivastava received two best poster awards for her work at the virtual 2020 Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring/Fall Meeting and Exhibit. Her poster “Machine Learning Framework for Accelerated Development of Halide Perovskites” was named one of three best posters in the “Frontiers of Halide Perovskites” symposium and one of twenty best posters conference-wide.
“I am extremely honored and grateful for this recognition, and I’m hoping that it draws more attention to the work that we’re doing in the Leite Lab,” she said.
The College of Engineering’s popular Engineering on Tap series continues on Thursday, January 21 at 5 p.m. PST with a family-friendly virtual event led by materials science and engineering professor and associate dean for research and graduate studies Ricardo Castro.
Third-year materials science and engineering Ph.D. student Luis Sotelo is always working to make things stronger. Whether it’s ceramic materials in the lab or the graduate student communities he’s part of in the UC Davis Chicanx and Latinx Engineers and Scientists Society (CALESS) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), he aims to make a difference in his community.
The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California Davis invites applications for a pool of qualified temporary instructors to teach courses in our department should an opening arise. Screening of applicants is ongoing and will continue as needed. The number of positions varies from quarter to quarter, depending on the needs of the department.
Materials science and engineering distinguished professor emeritus and College of Engnieering dean emeritus Zuhair A. Munir was recognized for his lifetime achievements in the field of ceramic engineering with the 2021 James I. Mueller Memorial Award from the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) Engineering Ceramics Division. He will be honored at the 45th International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites, where he will deliver the Keynote Plenary Lecture virtually on February 8, 2021.
Materials science and engineering associate professor Marina Leite thinks machine learning is key to the next big breakthrough in renewable energy. With a new three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Leite will use machine learning techniques to study perovskite solar cells, a class of highly efficient but volatile devices, to find the optimal conditions to run them reliably.
Materials science and engineering professor Ricardo Castro is launching the Engineering Superheroes Initiative to engage kids in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through superheroes. Castro knows from his son Sammy that kids are obsessed with superhero movies and he thinks he can use that love to inspire them to pursue STEM.
Recent materials science and engineering (MSE) Ph.D. graduate Weidi Zhu had never worked with glasses before coming to UC Davis, but through research projects with Blacutt-Underwood Professor Sabyasachi Sen, he developed an interest in the material that turned into a career with Apple. As the world becomes “smart,” Zhu hopes to use what he learned at UC Davis to contribute to the science behind the glassy materials that will become increasingly important to the world.
The Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) department is hosting a virtual “block party” for current graduate students and MSE alumni from 5:15 – 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23. Register here to attend.
Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Jeremy Mason joins the class of 2021 UC Davis Hellman Fellows. The unique Hellman Fellows Program helps promising assistant professors bridge the funding gap between start-up funding and securing competitive external grants.
Professor Sabyasachi Sen has been named the new Blacutt-Underwood Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). The five-year endowed professorship supports a faculty member in the MSE department whose research is at the forefront of materials science and engineering and related interdisciplinary areas.
Engineering alumnus and Inneos CEO Brian Peters ‘88 is a successful leader, businessman and entrepreneur in the optics industry, but he wouldn’t lead with that. In his 25 years in business, Peters takes the most pride in leading companies with an inspired community of colleagues who have helped him carve out his place in Silicon Valley.
Though their optical and electrical properties are very promising, perovskites are a class of materials that are still understudied. Until researchers have a better understanding of their overall properties, they can’t learn how to control them to create ubiquitous devices like solar cells, LEDs and photodetectors.
For fourth-year materials science and engineering major Raegan Taylor, engineering is a means to understand and contribute to the world around her. Driven by a desire to help people, she has used her curiosity about the world and her research experience to build a strong foundation in engineering as she pursues a career in optical engineering.
“I see engineering as an avenue to learn about the world and round out my interests in a way that’s beneficial to other people,” she said.
Professor Yayoi Takamura is the new chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering Department, effective July 1. A long-time leader in the department, Takamura joined UC Davis in 2006 and had been vice chair of the MSE department since 2017. She also served on the Dean’s faculty advisory committee from 2016-17 and was chair of the College of Engineering graduate study committee from 2018-20. She plans to bring her experience with her to her new role.
A new NSF-funded project at UC Davis aims to give researchers “recipes” for consistent and optimized structures of nanoporous gold—a material with potential applications in a variety of fields.